Shadow Games
by Avogadro602
Summary: Being a double agent is hard. Being a triple agent is harder. Companion to Collateral Damage, but can stand alone. Rated M because Ada works for the Dark side and well, it's dark there.
1. Triple Agent

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Hello Everyone! I bring to you now the companion to Collateral Damage as promised: Shadow Games. This will be from Ada's perspective and can stand alone if necessary. Reading Collateral Damage first is recommended, but it shouldn't be required to understand the story (assuming I did my job right). It's been very interesting getting inside of Ada's head… I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil. If I did, Chris and Jill would TOTALLY be together by now.

 **Chapter 1:**

 **Triple Agent**

Ada swiveled in the plush leather chair and let out a small sigh. She had the information she needed stored safely in her PDA—the electronic documents had been sent to their intended recipients ten minutes ago. Now she was only waiting on the call to confirm that they'd received it.

It'd all been far too easy for such damning information. The company had little security from their internal offices, so it'd been pathetically simple to copy the files in question once inside. She'd replaced the originals with an empty duplicate of the same name; unless they had a habit of opening up all of their files on a regular basis, they'd have no idea they had been stolen from. No one had seen her come in;no one would see her leave. _No one would know she was here._

She had just started filing her nails (with a file taken from this unsuspecting employee's desk, of course) when she felt the soft buzzing of her phone against her thigh. She reached one gloved hand down, pulling the phone from its holster and pressing it to her ear.

"Did you receive the package?" she asked, mildly disinterested.

A soft male voice replied, "Yes," and then, "Does Orion know?"

She shifted the phone between her shoulder and cheek to free up her hand so that she could start filing her nails again. "They have no idea," she assured, "I sent them faulty information, as requested. Permission to leave the area?"

"Granted," the man said. The line went dead a second after.

She set down the file to slip the phone back into its holster. "Not even a goodbye?" she asked the empty office, but no one answered her. Instead, a quiet beeping noise started from the hidden pocket inside her bra. She rolled her eyes. There went phone number two…

It was a small thing, about as thin as refrigerator magnet and only as long as the speaker and receiver required it to be. She slipped it out from the top of her dress and pressed the button to answer. "Did you receive the package?" she repeated in the same voice as before.

"Package received," a deep voice replied. It was obviously altered electronically, which left her unable to identify anything about the person on the other line. _Paranoid, anyone?_ She thought to herself and waited for the voice to continue. It was ridiculous to think that she even cared about the identity of her handler, anyway. "What is the status on The Liberati?"

"Clueless," she answered casually, "They have no idea I'm working for you."

"Keep it that way," the deep voice ordered.

She sighed again. _So rude…_ "Permission to—"

The line cut off before she could finish. Her lips pressed together in a small frown. _Do any of these people have manners?_ She hid the phone back in her bra and stood up.

Though the most prudent course of action would have been to leave immediately, she had one last stop to make. After leaving the office, she headed down a wood paneled hallway and over to the stairs. The sound of strings floated up from below and she felt compelled to enter the ballroom, drawn in like the tide to the shore. Aparty was waiting for her on the lower level and beyond a sturdy wooden door. Also waiting for her was a tantalizing prize: _him._

A smile found its way onto her face and her heart picked up its pace as she drew closer. She paused just before the door, wrangling her excitement before stepping out.

The room was packed with people, and all of them—save one, perhaps—would have been glad to see her dead if they knew who she was. Yet, the only stray looks she got were lustful or appraising in nature; the red gown and butterfly mask she'd used to sneak in blended in perfectly with the crowd. Her scooping neckline caught yet another eye and she laughed under her breath. _An anti-bioterrorism masquerade ball,_ she thought, amused, _for all of their bravado, they're just like everyone else: blind at the first show of cleavage._

She had reached the edge of the dance floor at the room's center when she spotted him—he was at a table in the corner. A thrill rippled through her at the sight of him. _Found you,_ she thought, grinning.

Leon Scott Kennedy. What a man—a trained government agent with the skills and intelligence to turn even the weakest odds in his favor. Even without his naturally flirtatious humor, he was a catch. Boyishly good looks had served him well even into his thirties, and the dirty blond locks that fell over his forehead led back into a full, touchable head of hair. He was touching that hair now—absently wiping it out of his face with the back of his hand—as he spoke to the woman next to him.

The faint twinges of jealousy that tugged at her heart surprised her. It wasn't like her to be possessive; she rarely stayed in one place long enough to develop a sense of ownership over a toothbrush, let alone a friend or lover. Besides, she recognized the attractive blonde woman sitting next to him—it was that Birkin girl from Raccoon City all those years ago. Leon had met her as a child; Sherry was far too young for him to be seriously interested in. _And even if he was,_ she admitted, _I'd have no claim on him._

She and Leon walked very different paths; where the law was concerned, they were polar opposites. There could never be anything between them. But then again, that wasn't a surprise. She'd always been this way.

Leon was a man of truth and integrity, while Ada was a woman of lies. A good liar based his fictions on truth, but a great liar blurred the lines of reality so well that only the author could tell the difference. At one point in her life, she'd been a great liar. But deceit was a dangerous art, and she'd gotten too good at it. After so long hiding the truth, she could barely tell the difference between the falsehoods she created and what was real.

Of course, _he_ had changed all that. Such foolish idealism and naivety; when she met him in Raccoon City it was like being woken up for the first time in years. He surprised her with his perseverance and how fiercely he fought for the things he believed in. It threw her so much that she started behaving strangely and making stupid mistakes. Just as she would've predicted if she'd been in her rational mind, it ended up in her nearly dying.

But not before she'd said more than she intended to, and stolen a kiss from that beautiful mouth.

" _I'm just a woman who fell in love with you. Nothing more."_

She heard her own words in her head and suppressed a frown. Why had she said that? Love wasn't a part of her life. It was a silly, abstract thing that _other_ people spoke about. She didn't believe in love.

But the way he'd made her feel…the way she'd acted so recklessly because of it… It was such a rush to feel alive again that she'd forgotten about who she was. She didn't care about the secrecy or the rules anymore, she just wanted him to live. And for once, she'd put someone else's needs above her own.

But that had been in the heat of the moment, with death staring her in the face. The rules of her life did not change just because she cared whether someone lived of died. Or because that same someone had given her second thoughts about the things that she did. No, the world remained the same ruthless, filthy, backstabbing place it had been before and she remained a liar.

She may not have a claim on him, but she had enough respect for the man to warn him of the iceberg headed his way. If the information she'd been digging through earlier had been correct, then the Agency Leon worked for had some very big, dirty plans that could turn his life upside down.

A waiter dropped a tray of dishes in front of her and she saw Leon's head snap up as he looked in her direction. She smirked as their eyes met. _Not as clueless as the rest of them, are you Leon?_ He stood up and mumbled something to Sherry, then started making his way toward her. She felt like a fisherman reeling in a line.

Up close she could see his features more clearly, and they were no less becoming. His pale blue eyes bored into her, captivated by her every move. _Oh how I missed toying with him like this._ "Hey there, handsome," she greeted when he was in ear shot, "Enjoying the party?"

"I've never been one for parties," he replied. _I didn't think so,_ she commented silently, eyeing up the taught muscles in his shoulders. His body was tense, his eyes never straying from her. He was clearly waiting for an explanation, but she had no intention of rushing this. _It's far too much fun,_ she thought deviously and had no trouble maintaining her smile. After a moment he extended a hand. "May I have this dance?"

The low, alluring tone of his voice had her stomach quivering with pleasure. _What chivalry._ "What kind of person would I be if I said no?" she asked, taking his hand.

To her delight, she discovered he had some idea of what he was doing when it came to dancing. His palm was warm and strong when it slid up to her back and guided them in a steady rhythm. She didn't complain when he pulled her closer and whispered against her cheek, either. "What are you doing here?" his voice came, hushed and weighted with his confusion. She could feel his pulse throbbing in his hand and shoulder. _He's nervous. How cute._

She pulled him closer to hide her growing smile and whispered into his ear. "Can't a girl have a little fun?"

His pulse sped up against her hand and his breathing became slightly shallower. _Liked that, did you?_ She silently teased and considered nibbling on his ear lobe for good measure. However when his lips brushed against her hair and breathed out their next words, she reconsidered. " _Fun_ where you're concerned usually involves people dying, _Ada."_

 _So you've finally noticed,_ she commented in her mind with a hint of melancholy. But rather than express it, she locked the reaction up and allowed a playful note of surprise to escape her throat. "You judge me too harshly. I only ever wanted to help…"

The muscles of his shoulders flexed beneath his shirt and the grip on her back became rigid. "If you're planning something tonight, you know I have to stop you."

A laugh forced its way through her self-control, unexpected and thoroughly savored. _As if you could._ "Ever the Boy Scout, aren't you, Leon?" she taunted, amused. When he didn't seem to appreciate the joke, she reluctantly admitted that she had delayed long enough. "If you insist," she said while grasping the back of his neck and forcing him to be still, "I'll get straight to the point." She moved suddenly, raising one knee to press against his thigh and using it to brace herself as she leaned backwards in his arms. He obliged, lowering her down into the dip. Wrapping her leg around him for leverage, she rolled her body back up against his chest and held him close. "You're treading in to dangerous water, Leon. Be careful who you trust in the weeks ahead. Sometimes trouble comes from where you least expect it."

He pulled away slightly and turned his head to catch her eye. "Is this a warning?" he asked, his voice rough and tight with the threat of danger.

 _I'm running out of time,_ she realized when she caught sight of the same blonde from earlier—Sherry—looking their way from across the room. Already she was mentally assessing her escape route through the window in the hallway. Putting on her best smile, she stepped away from him. "Take it how you want. Now if you don't mind, I have an appointment to keep."

She heard him call out to her as she left and turned back to wink at him. Three steps more and she was through the doorway and running down the hall, counting the seconds it'd take him to catch up to her. When she reached the window (which she'd intentionally left open for just this purpose), she leapt over the ledge with no hesitation. Unafraid of the weightlessness that came with falling, she aimed her grapple gun and fired.

Moments later she was landing, knees bent, on the roof of the adjacent building. She retracted the grapple and holstered it back inside her dress where it'd been hidden before. The rooftops around her were empty and she was alone once again.

She sighed. While she loved leaving Leon begging for more, she had hoped she'd get a little more time. With the vague warning she'd offered him, the message hadn't sunken in. _I'll have to fix that,_ she thought and started drafting a backup plan. She still had the information she'd stolen, and there might be a page or two in there that might give Leon a clue. If she could get to a printer, she could leave a gift for him in his apartment tonight while he was out…

Mind made up, she approached the opposite end of the roof and planned her path through the city.

Just as she was about to jump a soft, barely noticeable chime came from the bracelet on her wrist. Pausing, she lifted her arm and examined it for a moment. It was simple, but classy—a black ringlet studded with small crystals and a curious pendant in the center. No one would guess that it served as a direct phone line to the devil. Her finger hesitated over the small, circular pendant now as another chime sounded. After another moment she pressed down on it, feeling something close to apprehension for the first time all evening.

A light flared out from the pendant and formed a holographic image just above her palm: three separate lines glowed blue white to form a familiar logo. They didn't trust her enough to show their faces, but she should have expected that.

"Miss Wong," A calm woman's voice greeted her, "I trust you are doing well?"

Ada kept her voice level, preferring to stare out at the city rather than the logo branding her hand. "It was a wonderful party. How kind of you to ask."

"It's our pleasure, Miss Wong," the woman's voice continued, "But I'm afraid we have business to attend to."

"The information has been sent," Ada said, looking up towards the sky as thunderclouds rolled in. _Best get inside soon…_

"And Orion? The Liberati?"

She smiled wryly into the air. "Clueless, as always. Both believe I'm working as a double agent for the other. Neither have any idea of the truth."

The woman made a pleased humming noise before speaking. "Very good, Miss Wong." Ada's brow twitched ever so slightly. She hated the way they said her name. Hopefully, her lapse in control would go unnoticed—on a cloudy night like this one the satellite should be blind, if they were transmitting a video at all. Whatever the case, the woman made no mention of it. "We will contact you again soon. Have a pleasant day."

The hologram disappeared and her bracelet returned to normal. She let her arm fall back to her side slowly, feeling the wind rise up and listening to the noises of the city below. "I'm sure you will," she whispered.

With her grapple gun at the ready, she stepped off the ledge.


	2. Contagion

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Hey guys! Sorry for the wait. I'm trying to stay ahead of you guys by a few chapters, and I ran into a plot snag that I had to work out. Thank you to everyone who's read and reviewed so far! :-) One of you expressed some confusion as to Ada's feelings about Leon. About that. So, while I hope it's not detrimental to the enjoyment of the story, that was actually intentional on my part. Because Ada's feelings toward Leon ARE complicated. I don't think she understands them herself. She's a complicated one.

So, I hope you guys continue to enjoy it! You'll run into a familiar character during this chapter, assuming you've read Collateral Damage… Let me know how you like it, or if you have any questions!

Disclaimer: No ownership of Resident Evil for me!

 **Chapter 2:**

 **Contagion**

The water was steaming when she got in. It was hot, almost painful against her skin—just how she liked it. A soft moan escaped her lips as she let the warmth burn into her, chest flushing with pleasure. A long awaited vacation lay ahead of her; a blessed recess from the sins committed in the name of her employers. Surrounded by a sanctuary of heat, she leaned her head back and allowed a small smile to grace her lips.

A chime sounded from the pile of clothes on the floor next to the tub.

Ada cracked open an irritated eye. _I just got back._ With a frustrated sigh she sat up and reached for the bracelet. She thought about putting a shirt on—the device obviously had video capabilities—but decided against it. _They_ interrupted her, after all. And she wasn't shy.

Perhaps it would make them uncomfortable.

Smirking, she pressed her finger to the pendant and the familiar holographic logo appeared. There was a long pause before anyone spoke. "…Miss Wong?"

 _Sounds like they do have a video feed. Good to know._ She smiled devilishly. "Yes?"

"I hope we weren't interrupting anything important," the woman said, the surprise leaving her voice as she slipped back into a professional tone.

Ada tapped her fingers on the basin and pointedly ignored the fact that she was topless. "Is there something you need?"

"We realize that you are supposed to be off duty, but an urgent matter has come to our attention. It could not wait."

 _Clearly,_ Ada replied in her head. "I'm listening."

"Orion and the Liberati will be contacting you soon. If they assign you a mission, we want you to accept."

"And if their goals conflict?" she asked. They'd gotten lucky this time, but that would not always be the case. It would not be easy to appear loyal to both companies if they ordered her to perform opposing actions.

"We have reason to believe they won't."

They weren't telling her the whole story. How comforting. "I see. I'll pretend to be surprised when they call."

The woman waited a beat before speaking again. "In the meantime, we have something else for you to look into. Your…" her next word appeared to be spoken carefully, as if to hide her distaste, "… _boyfriend_ didn't show up to work today. We need you to find him at the earliest moment possible."

 _Disapprove of my methods, do you?_

Ada grabbed a small, clear object that sat on the side of the basin. With a flick of her wrist, she brought up her PDA and accessed the program that pinged Isaac Redfern's location to her every ten minutes. "Already on it," she assured, then hesitated. She looked into the holographic logo with a reserved curiosity. "What do you want me to do with him when I find him?"

"Bring him in. Alive."

* * *

Panacea never truly slept. The building was dark when she arrived, but that didn't matter. Some devoted scientist would be in there running last minute calculations and burning the midnight oil.

She stepped inside with no fear of being recognized; she'd been making nightly visits to Redfern for several months now. No one would think twice about the attractive young woman who'd taken an interest in him—and his research. Familiarity could be a dangerous thing with the way it made people let down their guards…

According to the GPS tracking device she'd slipped onto his briefcase after their second encounter, he should have been in his office. But when she unlocked the door with the key he'd given her, there was no one at his desk.

She searched the office thoroughly. She flipped through the papers on his desk, opened each drawer, and checked his garbage. The only useful piece of information that came out of her efforts was from his lab notebook. According to the most recent entry, he'd been to work yesterday. She checked the GPS again—his briefcase should have been right here. _Or perhaps…_

The lab. It was right below her.

"Hmm," she hummed quietly and put the notebook away. "It seems I'll have to dig a little deeper…" Before leaving Isaac's office, she pulled on the spare lab coat he always kept in a box underneath his desk. _Always look the part,_ she thought and made her way to the elevator.

Isaac did most of his work in the sub-basement where they handled the most dangerous substances, but she would have to make a stop at the floor above first. Elevator access to the sub-basement required a retinal scan, and not even Ada could bluff her way out of that. As a result, her first stop would be to the upper level of the basement.

The ride was short. When the doors opened, she moved quickly and with purpose through all the shortcuts that would take her past the least number of inquiring faces. She ducked through an instrument room, past scientists who didn't even look up as she passed. In the next hallway a young woman in a lab coat rounded the corner, about to look up from her clipboard. Ada ducked into a supply closet and waited for her to pass. She stole a pair of nitrile gloves before leaving and slipped them on in place of her black faux leather ones.

After a short trip down the hall she had reached the stairs, which were protected by passcode only. _Pathetic,_ Ada thought. She'd known the code only two hours after coming here. _These people have no idea what they're working with…_ Her gloved fingers punched in the code, and a light above the door handle flashed green.

Once inside, she bypassed the stairs entirely by leaping over the railing. Her coat flew up around her but she paid it no heed and landed on the balls of her feet with practiced grace. Straightening, she fixed her coat and stepped through the next door.

It would be more difficult down here. Those who worked on this level were trained to be observant and notice things that didn't belong—like herself. But she didn't hold this against them; their security was pitifully inadequate as it was. Just in case, she stopped in an empty lab and picked up a pair of extra safety goggles. It'd be enough to fool them for a moment.

Her goal was the security station, and it was not far. At this hour it would be manned by one, maybe two people. She approached the door and listened.

Sounds of a football game met her ears.

She smiled.

The door opened slowly at her touch, silently. There was only one man, leaning back in a chair and facing away from the door. Many screens lined the far wall, all showing a video feed of the facility. A separate TV sat on a counter in front of him, football game on at full blast. He wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention. She reached into a pocket hidden in the armpit of her coat and produced a syringe. The needle went cleanly into his neck, and he was unconscious in moments.

"Alright Isaac," she whispered and pulled up a chair beside the sedated man, "What have you been up to?"

Isaac was indeed at work yesterday. She watched him go through his day, fast forwarding through several monotonous tasks and a few hours spent reading a research article. At midday he locked his office door and she played the video, expecting to see something significant. Instead she was rewarded with the sight of him pleasuring himself to one of the many porn files on his computer. She rolled her eyes in irritation and sped the video up again.

In the afternoon he visited the sub-basement. She watched him prepare a sample for an experiment and slowed the video down, frowning. _He's shaking,_ she realized. His briefcase was on the laboratory bench next to him. She suspected it was still there.

On the screen, Isaac lifted a glass tipped pipet and then tensed as something off screen startled him. He looked over his shoulder and jumped. And then he was looking back down at the pipet, which had managed to break in the movement. He froze a moment, then moved to the biohazard disposal at the other end of the room. When he had tossed the dirty pipet, he returned to the bench and packed up the experiment. Then he left.

Ada frowned and rewound the video. She watched him tense again, and jump. _He's afraid,_ she thought. Did something he saw make him leave? This was a disconcerting thought. Isaac had been growing paranoid in recent days. He'd been nervous the last time she'd met with him, and had spoken of people following him. He might've even suspected _her._ This was true, of course, but _she_ wasn't the problem. _She_ had performed her part flawlessly. _Someone else_ had made him nervous.

There was a mole in Panacea.

She didn't know who it was, but she'd seen the tracks. Or rather, the absence of them. Records were deleted that she hadn't touched. A convenient mix-up in security shifts left a hallway or lab unwatched for several hours. The administration and supervisors were usually blamed for overlooking a small detail here or there, but they never remembered making the mistake. _Someone else was here…_

She didn't like the interference, but at least it gave an explanation for his strange behavior. Still, there was something she didn't like about the scene. She rewound the video and watched it again. He put the sample tubes down. He retrieves the pipet, and prepares to draw up sample. The pipet goes in the tube, comes back out again. Cue noise and following jumping. The pipet breaks and he looks down at it.

She paused the video and looked closer. _No, he's not looking at the pipet…_ He was looking at his hand. She sucked in a gasp and rewound the video, watching his hands this time. Sample, pipet, noise, jump. _There,_ she thought and stared, wide eyed. It was hard to tell through the grainy image, but it was there. _He cut himself. He pricked his finger. That_ was why he was staring at his hand.

She let the video play and watched as he left the lab, walked up the stairs, exited the building, and entered his car. _And drove away._

Ada stood up and closed down the security footage. She left through the elevator, needing no retinal scan to go up, and jogged to her car. When the door slammed shut, she pressed her finger to the pendant.

"Miss Wong?" The hologram spoke up a few minutes later. It was unusual for her to contact them instead of the other way around. "Did you have an update on the mission?"

"Yes." she answered with real urgency in her voice, "Isaac Redfern is infected."

* * *

She needed to find him. He might not have gotten far, having only left last night. She ran through her knowledge of the virus in her head as she drove, following the route he would've taken to get home. _The vector is a derivative of the rabies virus, but all disease causing genes have been removed._ Or at least they _would_ have been, had a certain mole not been tampering with the test strain. To their credit, Panacea's intentions had been noble. They were using the rabies virus to deliver a cure for Alzheimer's disease. They didn't know about the organizations that had taken interest in their results, and had secretly tried to turn their discovery into a weapon.

From what she had heard, they hadn't succeeded yet. They were having problems because every time they added their contribution to the viral mix, some of the disease symptoms came back. Last she knew, the virus was producing the effect they were looking for—a behavior change that would make the target more susceptible to certain subliminal messages, and could spread easily through a large population. But it also included a wholehost of other nasty side effects, like fever, confusion, and of course, death.

This was the strain of the virus believed to be inside Redfern, right now. She sped up a little. _How long before he becomes symptomatic?_ She wondered. The altered virus worked much more quickly than its original counterpart. _Six hours? A day? Two?_ She didn't know. And she _really_ didn't like not knowing.

A familiar car at the side of the road caught her attention. She pulled over behind it and got out. _Isaac's car._ The front driver-side door was open. _He left on foot._ She looked around herself and took in the dense forest that began several feet from the roadside. Was he so paranoid that he'd brave the forest alone in an unfamiliar area? Had someone been following him? Or was he already symptomatic and delusional?

She called his name a few times. A steady rain picked up and she pulled out a flashlight. "Isaac?" She called again, looking to the trees.

Nothing.

When she shined the light on his door she found something dried and disgusting clinging to it. She leaned in to get a good look, but stayed a safe distance away. _Dried vomit,_ she decided. Further into his car was a pack of his favorite vice—Jack Daniel's Whiskey. Several bottles were missing.

This wasn't looking good.

Her flashlight lit up a wide circle of grass at the forest edge. She examined the ground all around the car for anything he might've left behind and found nothing. Pinching her lips together, she looked back to the forest. She'd never been a big fan of "the great outdoors". Reluctantly, she stepped into the tree line.

It'd been dark on the street, but it was darker in the forest. Her light illuminated the scratchy brown bark of the trunks around her. She traveled in a straight line, hoping that Isaac had done the same. If not, she'd have to ask for help. And she had always preferred to work alone.

This forest had a wide variety of vegetation. Tall pines with thick needles brushed her coat and the paper white trunks of birch trees practically fluoresced in the light. Rain was falling heavier now, making tapping sounds as fat drops fell into the leaf litter.

She watched for tracks and found few: a possible footprint here, a piece of fuzz there. When she found the bottle, she was so distracted that she didn't see the lights.

"Hey!"

She switched off her light and ducked down behind a tree. There was a house up ahead that she hadn't noticed until now. They must've seen her light…

"You're not supposed to be on my land!" a man with a heavy southern accent was shouting.

The sound of several dogs barking had her cursing under her breath. People she could hide from; dogs were harder to avoid. She needed to leave. "I got a legal right to shoot trespassers, ya know," the man continued.

 _I'm sure you do,_ she remarked silently and started sneaking away.

"I saw yer light, ya coward! Get back here an' tell me what yer doin' on my land!"

"My apologies," she whispered sarcastically as she finally slipped out of visual range and stood up. Rule number one of being an internationally wanted spy was to minimize interactions if at all possible. The fewer people who knew her face, the better.

A hound was howling in the distance, but she would reach her car long before it could catch up to her, if it was following at all. She used the trip back to think on that bottle she'd found, but had been unable to investigate further.

Isaac was probably dead. She wasn't particularly upset. She certainly wouldn't miss the real question was how many people he had managed to infect in his drunken and probably delusional state? If he died in the forest, his body could be eaten by scavengers. That would spread the virus. If he contacted those delightful country bumpkins she'd run into, that would have spread the virus.

If the country bumpkin's dogs had torn him to shreds, that would also have spread the virus.

She let out an irritated sigh as she shut the car door. It wasn't supposed to be her job to track down idiots who got lost in the woods. She couldn't exactly go door to door asking about it, either. "Lovely," she grumbled. It looked like she'd have to call for help after all.

* * *

They told her that they'd send someone. All she needed to know was that she didn't need to do it, which suited her fine. They'd send someone innocuous and boring to do the leg work. Someone who was on a few less wanted lists.

As it turned out, the agent they chose to investigate was neither innocuous norboring. He didn't even play for the same team. She'd raised an eyebrow when she read Leon's name in the report. _So he's managed to find his way into this mess already_. How classic. Poor Leon probably had no idea why his agency would send him out there in the first place. She sighed. It was alarming even to her how much corruption could grow before it started to stink.

As usual, he had a contradicting combination of good and bad luck. Disasters always seemed to lay down at his feet, but he would walk through them without so much as scuffing his shoes. It was unsurprising then when they torched the town and he walked out unscathed. Only a handful of people had lived in the area in a nearby town called Qwills. It would've been an easy decision. Naïve people, who had seen less of the world than she had, liked to say that there was no dollar value on a human life. But how many reports had she read that evaluated total loss of life in dollar signs? Their logic in destroying Qwills had been simple money math: if the virus spread out of the town, it'd take a lot more money to cover up. Ninety nine percent of the time, secrets of the dead were less costly than secrets of the living.

The ethics of bioterrorism were complicated. Leak a dangerous, mind altering virus on purpose and you've accomplished your goal. But leak it on accident, and the same people who would have intentionally infected an innocent population are suddenly concerned about public welfare. Everyone wants to save their own skin _._ She found the whole thing disgusting and a little tiresome, personally. But she didn't make those decisions—she only enforced them.

That was why she was currently sitting on Isaac's office computer desk, waiting for his research data to finish copying onto her jump drive. Since Isaac's absence had become prolonged, she had been forced to sneak in here. The other employees here had become jumpy—they had known Redfern was paranoid, but they never expected him to actually disappear. Any unfamiliar faces would be suspicious. It didn't faze her—working in the shadows was what she did best.

The computer beeped, signaling the end of the download. She removed the jump drive and slipped it into a small pocket on her leg holster, then closed out of the files. Standing on Isaac's desk, she reached for the ceiling and pushed a tile out of the way. With one powerful leap, she pulled herself up and into the hole.

Traveling in the ceiling was always a dangerous process. Only certain areas could support her weight, so with one false step she'd be crashing through to the room below. There was some luck in the placement of Isaac Redfern's office; it sat directly below a security feature of the compound known as a panic room. If a possible contagion were to be let loose in one of the labs, the employees would be shuttled to a nearby panic room—there was one on each level—and be asked to wait until the all clear was sounded. By isolating each floor, they assured that the contamination could spread no further than the level it started on. Each room was heavily reinforced with thick metal supports—which happened to be strong enough to hold her up as well.

She replaced the ceiling tile and maneuvered her way out of the room, using the supports like monkey bars. The supports didn't span very far, but they didn't have to—she only had to get as far as the maintenance shaft at the other end of the hall.

She kicked out a vent and slid through to the other side, using one hand to hang onto the metal lip that stuck out from the wall and another to flip on a light at ear. It was dark, because no one was supposed to be _in_ here. The shaft would give her direct access to the roof with only one small difficulty to account for—it was normally traveled by elevator.

This wouldn't be a problem for climbing. There was a ladder on the far wall for just this purpose. It was important, in case the elevator ever broke down. The problem would only be if someone decided to _use_ the elevator while she was still in the shaft: there was not enough room for both herself, the ladder, and the elevator car at the same time. And steel was not as malleable as she was.

Still, the ladder would be the fastest option. She used pipes crisscrossing the walls to shimmy over and started climbing. Halfway up, the pendant on her bracelet chimed. Pausing to glance at it with mild irritation, she hooked her elbow around a rung and used her now free hand to press against the pendant. Then she started climbing again.

She hated being owned.

"Are you busy?" the woman asked pleasantly.

A sound from above had Ada looking up. The elevator, which had been a few feet above her, started to descend. Grabbing onto a pipe on the wall Ada flung herself off the ladder and flattened her body against the steel. The elevator whooshed by her, close enough to brush her back. She let out a breath and looked back to the infernal logo, warped by the steel it was projected on. "Not particularly."

"Good," the woman said brusquely, either not seeing or caring about Ada's near-brush with death. Ada found the ladder and started climbing again. "We need you to do a quick clean up job. We have a government agent working to gather information on Redfern, but he's on a need to know basis. We would prefer if he could perform his search without finding any evidence of us. In particular, we'd like you to do a sweep of his apartment."

Ada pushed open the emergency hatch and then stars were shining above her, twinkling in greeting. "I assume this is a time sensitive issue, or you wouldn't be contacting me in the field." Cleaning out Redfern's apartment had been next on her list. She pulled herself out and shut the hatch.

"Yes, quite. But we need you to do something else first. Have you left Panacea yet?"

"I was just leaving," she answered, hiding the irritation that wanted to seep out in her voice. _They're going to ask me to go back in._

"Don't," the woman replied immediately, "We have a deep-cover operative in need of extraction. You will re-enter the compound and find a safe exit for him."

 _The mole,_ she thought. "I see. Has he blown his cover, or does he just have trouble with doors?"

"We do not approve of your attitude, Miss Wong."

"My apologies," Ada murmured with fake sincerity, "Tell me what to do."

"The building has gone into a security lockdown. We need you to disable it to allow for him to exit. Meet him on the lowest level when you're done, but take all precautions necessary to avoid coming in contact with any contamination. The facility is now biohazard active."

She looked down at the building she stood on critically. _Panacea hasn't exhausted its usefulness yet, but they're pulling out anyway. They've gotten scared, and now they're destroying all the evidence._ How predictable. "How will I know the agent when I see him?"

"Just wait for him on the first floor. We have faith in you, Miss Wong." The logo went dark against her palm and she restrained the urge to glare at it. There were threats hidden in the things not said.

" _We have faith in you, Miss Wong."_

Yes, they had faith in her. For now. _They still don't trust me…_ The feeling was mutual, but they weren't allowed to know that. She pulled the grapple gun from its holster on her leg and kicked open the hatch. Seconds later she was rappelling back down into the blackness.

Her heels hit the top of the elevator with a clang. A small halo of light formed around her from her headlamp. _Onto business…_

* * *

She shimmied through ducts and passageways until she found a security room on the lowest level. It was the same room she'd been in where she had viewed the footage of Isaac from several nights ago. Thanks to the lockdown there was no one there to stop her this time. Once there, she slipped her knife from its sheath and used it to cut a wire that sent signals to all the main doors. With some jimmying of the locks, all doors leading to the way out should be clear.

She had been about to leave when an image from one of the monitors caught her eye. It was a room on the first floor—one of the panic rooms. There was a haze over the image, like the camera was viewing the scene through smoke or a colored gas. Shapes were moving through it, though they took a moment to identify. She sucked in a breath when she did.

The smoke cleared and she could see people pounding at the walls. Something in the room—the smoke, she suspected—was eating the flesh off of their bones. It dripped from their arms and faces in sloppy chunks as they struggled, their horrific screams muted through the lens of the camera.

Behind her, the door opened. The scent of mint wafted into the room. She suppressed a gag and turned slowly, disgust and revulsion rolling off of her in waves. And there he was, wearing that same tasteless suit. _I thought I smelled a rat._

Calculating grey eyes observed her with a cold logic. "Miss…Wong, is it?" His voice was soft. Polite. Monstrous.

She controlled her expression with an iron grip. "How pleasant to see you again," she greeted him calmly. "I see you've been a busy little boy. Looks like you've had a lot of fun."

The last time she'd seen him, he'd been calling himself Flynn. That had been the fifth alias she'd known him to use and she doubted he was still using it. Flynn, or whatever his name was now, glanced to the monitors behind her and back. "It was the most efficient method of disposal available."

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. Efficient? Possibly. Humane? Not in the slightest. Even she wouldn't have done this. He was everything she never wanted to be; he was a thoughtless slave to his masters. His presence made her want to crawl out of her skin. After a long moment she hummed and smiled tightly. "Efficient, yes. I'm sure you exhausted every possible alternative."

He blinked. It was very difficult to read him, but she felt the air shift and could tell he'd begun to grow impatient. "I believe you are supposed to escort me to the exit."

She gave up on smiling and crossed her arms. Her weight shifted to one foot as she leaned into her hip. "The doors are unlocked. Escort yourself."

For a second he actually narrowed his eyes. A heavy feeling of dislike hung in the air. "This will be in my report." He turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

"Fine by me," she muttered and turned back to the vents. It'd take longer, but she'd rather spend the next thirty minutes wiggling through vents than follow the same route as _him._ The mere fact that they worked for the same people disgusted her.

Forty minutes later, she was leaping off the side of a nearby building to the parking lot where she'd stored her car. The sun had just come up. She slipped inside the vehicle and slammed the door, ready to be out of this place. Her hand moved to the ignition but a soft buzzing sound stopped her. Orion was calling.

She sighed and pulled the small phone from her bra. This must be the fabled mission that she was supposed to agree to. She cupped it against her ear and pressed the button to answer. "Yes?"

The deep voice started speaking the moment the call started. "We have something for you."

"A gift?" she asked in mock playfulness, "You shouldn't have."

They ignored her completely. _No sense of humor,_ she thought dryly as they continued. "We've been monitoring a government agent for some time now. He has the potential to be either a great asset or a great liability. We already have someone on the job, but we're willing to give it over to you if you want it."

Her head cocked to the side and she tapped her fingers on the wheel. "And why is that?"

"Because intel has just come in that you already know this agent."

Her fingers stopped tapping. A heavy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. _I know where this is going…_ "Is that so?"

"If you agree," the deep voice spoke, "We will send you the file with his information. We would want you to start as soon as possible. Watch him, and after enough time make a decision on whether he can be turned or not. Keep him from acquiring any information that may incriminate our agency. Are you interested?"

 _I know where this is going,_ she thought again, but there was only one option. "Of course," she agreed, and the line went dead. Orion never wasted extra breath on pleasantries like goodbyes.

She waited several seconds before pulling out her PDA. The e-mail already was in her inbox—waiting for her. She tapped the title and it expanded into the words and images that she knew would be there. Their request for her to accept Orion's mission made sense now. _Test my loyalty and get a job done at the same time,_ she thought efficient employers she had. His name sat next to his face in bold letters.

 **LEON SCOTT KENNEDY**

She hummed and looked at his picture. He stared back at her with those responsible, incorruptible eyes. Her jaw set.

"Looks like I'll be seeing you soon, Agent Kennedy."


	3. Office Romance

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Hello Everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting this. I've been busy, and I'm still staying a few chapters ahead. Please let me know how you're liking it so far!

Disclaimer: Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you. Also never gonna own Resident Evil. Or that song.

 **Chapter 3:**

 **Office Romance**

She spent the next seven hours reading his files in an empty apartment a block away. Whether due to curiosity or a morbid sense of pride in her work, she found herself driven to know everything possible about her subject. Leon was perhaps the most undeserving person she'd ever been assigned to. His background was admirably clean and contrasted sharply with the corruption and deceit she normally dealt in. Her presence was always a bad omen to the people around her. She was not the reaper who her former colleague—"Flynn" or whatever his name was now—was. Still, those unlucky enough to find themselves being watched by her did have a habit of dropping dead.

Nonetheless, once she had started, it was difficult to stop.

 _Leon S. Kennedy: Government agent. Expert in special weapons and hand-to-hand combat. Upstanding citizen. Directly involved in the formation of several anti-bioterrorism organizations._ Her eyes flitted over the page with something like obsession. _Has three sisters—two older, one younger. Father is a deceased former police officer. Relationship to mother is distant, but positive._

His family held a gathering every year at Christmas and Thanksgiving, but he was usually working. The relationship between he and his mother had been becoming strained over the past few years as work ruled his life more and more. They used to write, but didn't anymore.

The bond between he and his sisters was better. Once every two weeks his eldest sister would call and try to tease information about his personal life out of him. A few transcripts had been recorded when he'd almost slipped up and revealed something about his work. Her eyes narrowed, but she kept reading. _They've been watching him for a long time._ One entry was dated a year ago, directly after the outbreak in China. She read with some amusement.

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _:_ " _You get back from that business trip to China?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Yeah, I'm back."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Took you long enough."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "There were a few…complications. You know. Extra paperwork."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Ah huh, right. You know I saw this thing on the news the other day about this terrorist attack in China..."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Really? What a coincidence. Good thing it didn't delay my flight."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Ha ha. Very funny, Leon. When are you going to get that desk job so I can stop worrying about you?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "You mean the desk job that sent me on a business trip to China?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "How about one with a bit less 'paperwork'? Let someone else play superman."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "But then who would save Lois Lane?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "I'm serious. I've seen your scars, Leon. How close did you get this time?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Sarah…"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "I know. You can't talk about it."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Sorry."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Just…be careful."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "I will. …paper cuts are a serious issue around the office."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Oh, shut up. Is that corny sense of humor why you don't have a girlfriend yet?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "This again?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Pardon me for my silly desire to be an aunt someday."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "We have two other siblings, you know."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Yeah, but you were always the cute one."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "I'm telling them you said that."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Go ahead. They'll agree. And they're with me on the girlfriend issue."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Damn, them too?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Seriously, how have you_ not _managed to find a girl with those manly abs? How many sit-ups do you do every day again?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Sarah, I don't really want to talk about this."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Really, I forgot. Tell me."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "One fifty."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Holy shit. Has that gone up since the last time I asked?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "No. Are your children around to hear you with that mouth?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "They're with their dad watching SpongeBob. And don't think you'll get away with trying to change the topic like that. I've got a mind like a fox."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Is that supposed to mean something?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Whatever. Just hear me out on this: what if…I brought the girl to you?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "It's not really a good time in my life for dating right now."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Oh come on, please? You always say that."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "That's because it's true."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Have you been holding out on me all this time and hiding some girl in that dinky little apartment of yours?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "That's called kidnapping, Sarah, and it's illegal."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "I think you have been. Who's the girl?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "There is no girl."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Is she someone you work with? Is that why you can't talk about it?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "You mean at my desk job?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Maybe an office romance? Or maybe a fling you met out on business?_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "…Leon?"_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Leon, are you there?"_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Sarah, I have to go. Something important came up."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Alright, but I expect superhero nieces and nephews by the end of the year. That's an order."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "I'm pretty sure I outrank you."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Don't be a dick."_

 _ **LEON S. KENNEDY**_ _: "Gotta go. Bye, Sarah."_

 _ **SARAH M. KENNEDY-SMITH**_ _: "Bye Leon. Love you, little bro."_

The corners of Ada's mouth had quirked up at some point. It was sweet, how much his sister appeared to care for him. At the same time, a bitter taste settled on her tongue: jealousy. " _Love you, little bro."_

In another life, one she could barely remember, there had been a family. But unlike Leon's affectionate sister, the bonds that bound them together were based solely on blood. There was no love to tie the philandering American to her mother after leaving a child in her belly. Neither was there love to stop her mother from selling the child off at the earliest age possible to a shady gymnastics company. When that failed, Ada had taken to the streets, which had given her wit and a smooth tongue.

But not love. Never love.

She pushed the faint memories from her mind. None of that mattered anymore. Her happiness had been forfeit long ago to ensure her survival. Hunger pains began to settle in, so she raided the apartment's fridge. The owners had generously left a bag of apples in the bottom drawer. Her neatly arranged teeth tore into the fruit's skin. It crunched as she bit into it.

She settled back down onto the missing owner's couch and started reading again.

* * *

It was past midday when she remembered her first assignment. Her mind came out of a haze slowly; it'd been living in a strange, unfamiliar world—Leon's world, full of first dates and cheeky humor and principles and kindness. Her brain spilled over with the story of his life as she tracked down every scrap of information that had ever been written down about, or by him.

But there were more important things to focus on right now—like an assignment she'd been shirking for the past few hours. She stole an outfit from the previous owner's closet—or perhaps it was the current owner, who was just away for an extended vacation? Either way, they weren't here so it didn't matter—and slipped out the back.

It took longer to get there because her bomb happy employers had blown up the shortcut that went through Qwills, but she arrived at the apartment after about an hour. As she entered she passed by well-groomed hedges and a pair of rose bushes at the door. Her heels clicked on the stone floor. She strode into the room with cool confidence and waved to the receptionist as she passed.

"Hi Greg," she greeted him coyly and flashed a smile.

Greg looked up from his magazine and grinned when he saw her. "You look nice. Trying to find Mr. Redfern?"

She pushed the button on the elevator and turned around to talk with him as she waited. "He hasn't returned my calls in days," she said in mock distress, "I was hoping I could find something that might give me a clue as to where he's run off to. You haven't seen him with any… _other_ women, have you?"

Greg pushed his brows together in sympathy. "Honey, if he left you for _anybody,_ he'd be _insane._ " He snapped his fingers to emphasize his point. "You go get him, girl."

Ada smiled sweetly and stepped into the elevator. "You're the best," she said as the doors closed. Greg winked at her at the last second.

She let the sweetness fall from her face as the elevator took her upward. The floor numbers rose quickly. _2…3…4._ Ada stepped out and looked the hallway up and down. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but with the number of agencies interested in Isaac's research it was quite possible that someone had gotten here before her. She approached the door with caution and pulled out her key. This one Isaac _hadn't_ given to her; she'd made a copy of her own while he wasn't looking. But who would know the difference?

The door opened silently. Her frame was small and she slid inside without letting the slightest bit of light or sound disturb the stillness. The apartment was dark and quiet, but she did a thorough check of every corner large enough to hide a body anyway. _Never trust the obvious._

There was no one inside. She left the lights off as she began poking around the piles of filth that littered Isaac's apartment. _No need to alert anyone of my presence here._ Using the light from the window, she searched between pizza boxes and old research papers. She ducked underneath his desk and checked for scraps of paper that could hide damning information. When she moved to his coffee table and started sifting through the stacks of papers, she saw the water stained rosewood and sighed. _What a wasteful man. If he ever had taste, it was gone long before I met him._ In his bedside drawer she found a picture of herself. She used his lighter to burn it in the sink and washed the ashes down the drain.

After two hours she began to grow weary. Isaac had more damning evidence in his apartment than empty beer cans, which was saying something. Every single one—every printout of his results and paranoid note—had to be disposed of. First they were shredded, then burned. Wash, rinse, repeat.

She wiped his personal computer and found another picture of herself there. _Sneaky bastard…_ She had just shut it down when there was a sudden tapping noise at the door. Slipping out of the chair, she ducked down, grabbed her gun and held her breath. By now the sun had set and nothing but the orange streetlamps outside lit the apartment.

There was a creak as the door opened. She stayed crouched behind a wall off to the side, listening. To her surprise, a familiar voice called out. "Hello?"

A quick, silent breath sucked into her lungs. _It's him._ Her heart picked up its pace in anticipation. After his investigation of Qwills, his agency must have asked him to investigate Redfern as well. She didn't need to guess where that order had originated from. _They're playing hardball with me…Looks like my assignment is going to start sooner than I thought._ The apartment was mostly clean, at least in terms of evidence. But with Leon's instincts it was quite possible that he would pick up on something she'd missed. _Perhaps I can use this to my advantage…_

"Leon," she called and stepped out from the wall. He jerked in the darkness, startled. His eyes wouldn't have adjusted yet, which would make her just a faceless phantom to him. A smile crept to her lips. _Did I scare you?_

"Who are you?" he asked, raising his gun.

A chuckle burst from her lips. He still hadn't recognized her yet. Her hand reached for the switch on the wall next to her, and then there was light. He was blinking at her, face taut with nervousness and confusion. He kept his gun up and she laughed again. _Really, Leon?_ "Is that how you greet all of your friends?"

His eyes skirted around the room before landing on her again. They ran up and down her body with an appreciation she didn't miss. So he liked her outfit, did he? _She had taste, I'll admit that,_ she thought about the anonymous woman whose closet she'd stolen this outfit out of. She felt like a warped version of the big bad wolf, seeing him admire the stolen red halter top and form fitting skirt. _Grandma, what big teeth you have!_ His eyes finally rose to meet hers again and she smirked.

 _All the better to eat you with, my dear._

"Ada," he called out to her. She took several steps toward him, making sure to sway her hips just so. Judging by the twinge of panic that came to his eyes, it seemed that the movement unnerved him. She felt a ripple of pleasure pass through her. He wanted her to speak, she could tell, but she remained silent because it would bother him more.

"What are you doing here, Ada?" he asked after a silence, the tension obvious in his voice. After a moment's hesitation, he holstered his gun.

She had no intention of giving him a straight answer, and she was enjoying the impatient look on his face far too much anyway, so she stayed quiet. It _clearly_ bothered him. His jaw tightened and his lips pressed together. She had to restrain her smile from growing, keeping it small and coy instead. It would do no good to let him know just how much she was enjoying this…

Finally he grew annoyed and crossed his arms. "Lost your boyfriend _again_?" he asked, referencing the first time they'd met with a slight bitterness in his tone. _I see you've been talking to someone,_ she mentally was probably Greg, but it would be better to play it safe and not bring it up.

And it was far more entertaining to tease him. "Jealous, Leon?"

She saw the fire light in his eyes and felt another thrill pass through her. _Yes, yes he is._ Making Leon jealous…it was better than chocolate.

"So that's how it's gonna be?" he snapped at her, "We're playing twenty questions…as usual." One of his feet lifted up and kicked backwards, rougher than it needed to be. The door slammed closed and he hadn't torn his frustrated gaze away from her once. _Afraid to look away, are you?_

Even as she thought it, he skirted around her and further into the apartment, always keeping a safe distance. Now that wouldn't do…

Leon chanced a look around the apartment, leaning forward to get a look into one of the hallways. She crept forward silently while he was turned away until she was nearly standing next to him. When he looked back she caught the startled expression on his face. She couldn't touch him, not yet, but she had to wonder: _Am I making your pulse race?_

He fled into the hallway, obviously still under the pretense of actually doing his job. _Sorry Leon, but I can't let you do that._ After all, it was _her_ job to make sure he didn't do his. She followed on his heels.

"So tell me Leon," she started in an attempt to throw him off, "What brings you to Mr. Redfern's apartment? Business or pleasure?"

He ignored her and looked into the bathroom, then continued on towards the office at the end of the hall. It was like he had a homing device for the only area she hadn't finished cleaning. "Cat got your tongue?" she offered in her most taunting voice but he continued on without even sparing a look back. With him safely looking away, she allowed her eyes to narrow slightly. She would _not_ be brushed off.

She gave a soft but dramatic sigh as she spotted the room on their left. "Redfern's office is the room at the end of the hall…and the _bedroom,_ " she stressed the word and saw him freeze. _I've got you now,_ she thought. "…the bedroom is on our left." His head turned slightly to the open doorway where Isaac's bed awaited.

 _Yes,_ she urged him silently, _why don't you take a look at the bedroom?_ She caught a glimpse of his heated face from his profile and thought, for a moment, that he would do it. Then he jerked his head back to the front. "Ada, I'm on the clock, and unlike _some_ people I try not to mix business and pleasure."

She restrained the urge to raise an eyebrow. _Getting nasty, are we?_ She could do nasty. _Really Leon, I think all this jealousy has gone to your head. You know better than to pick fights you can't win._ She caught him looking back at her again and sent him a grin. "Did I hit a sensitive spot?"

He tried to reply, but she brushed past him. She looked back to send him a devious smirk and added a sensuous tilt to her hips as she walked. His eyes strayed down and didn't come back up. With a wicked grin she paused in the doorway, letting him enjoy the view for a moment.

When he looked like he was about to drool, she called to him sweetly. "Aren't you coming?"

The double meaning in her words was intentional.

He appeared to snap back to attention, though there were traces of red in his cheeks. _Mmm,_ she silently hummed and sauntered ahead into the office, _I'd like to see what that fantasy was about…_ She walked over to the far wall and sat poised at the light switch until he followed her into the room. Her finger flicked upwards and Leon cursed at the sudden influx of bright light.

"Dammit Ada! A little warning next time please?"

"Oh, I'm sorry…" she teased, "Did I catch you off guard?" He rolled his eyes at her and started to really look around the room. She pretended not to care and casually made her way over to the window, always keeping him in her periphery.

That little trick with the lights had been more than just fun. While it was deeply satisfying to get such a rise out of Leon, she had other reasons for nearly blinding him. Her eyes scanned the street outside and settled on a black van sitting outside. She kept her face impassive, but felt a cold shadow pass over her heart. _They're watching._ The lights were a signal to keep away—a message that she'd gotten here first. Earlier she'd left the lights off, wanting to go unnoticed. But now Leon was here, and it complicated things.

If someone decided to drop in—from her agency or otherwise—she'd be able to handle them, or hide if necessary. But Leon was out of his league here. He had no idea what was going on, and she intended to keep it that way. If that required that she brazenly announce to the world that this apartment was currently occupied, then so be it.

She saw the shift in his posture out of the corner of her eye and turned. His eyes flickered away from something vaguely in her area and he immediately started rooting around Isaac's junk. _He's found something…_ "I never took you for the dumpster diving type," she commented as he checked underneath some of the pizza boxes on the floor. _What was he looking at?_ She thought and quickly ran her gaze over her surroundings. The window? The desk? Herself?

"Yeah, well, some of us have to get our hands dirty on occasion." He kicked aside an old takeout box and flipped through a dusty file folder that was propped up against the wall. His eyes stayed down, never straying to her side of the room.

"I don't think the dear Dr. Redfern would appreciate you digging through his trash," she said, hoping to catch his gaze and get him to give something away.

Instead, low laughter rumbled from his chest. "I 'spose you would know. After all, you're his girlfriend, right?" His eyes finally met hers, full of incredulous humor and tight with something bitter at the same time. Ah yes, jealousy again.

 _Just can't let it go, can you?_ Her chest swelled with a delightfully selfish feeling at the power she held over him. "Now who gave you an idea like that?" she breathed and took a guess, stepping forward and dragging her fingers over the desk. His eyes flickered down. _Got you,_ she thought, following his gaze down to an envelope. _Now for the fun part—distracting him._

She focused in on him and reached out a hand, calling him with her body. His eyes snapped back up to her, panicked again. She grinned internally. _We both know you can't resist._ Then his hand snaked out and wrapped around her wrist before tugging her to his chest. It surprised her, but she didn't show it. Either he was more eager than she'd thought, or he was playing a game. And if he was playing, then he'd lose. Had he forgotten who he was dealing with?

She felt the large, strong hand at her waist and wanted to purr at the touch. _Go ahead,_ she thought, smirking, _seduce me. I dare you._ She was going to enjoy this. "Forward, aren't we?" she asked and intentionally let her gaze slip to his lips.

"Why are you here, Ada?" he demanded, his voice a little rough.

 _So he wants to talk._ She would change that very soon. "I could ask the same of you," she practically purred and reached up with the hand he did not hold. Her fingers brushed lightly over his cheek, stroking from his temple and down to the strong jaw. The muscles clenched under her touch. She saw the movement in his throat as he swallowed and wanted to frown. _Stop resisting…_

"I asked you what you're doing here, Ada." His voice was harder this time. "Stop playing coy and come clean."

 _Clean? I don't know a thing about that._ She let her eyes travel to his lips again and edged forward. His face was close, but she needed it closer. If he would just let go of her wrist, she could grab the envelope he'd seen and be out of here in an instant. Looking at him from below her lashes, she leaned in.

The hand at her waist suddenly slipped upward to grip the back of her neck with large, powerful fingers. His arm wrapped around her like a vice and gravity shifted as he dipped her backwards. Alarm whispered at the corner of her mind—the lack of control this position yielded was both disturbing and thrilling. _I'll allow it for now,_ she decided, keeping her breathing even and carefully studying him, _Let him perform his little act. He's not going anywhere._ Out of the corner of her eye she caught movement, but couldn't see with her head immobilized by his hand. There was a quick flash of white as he moved his hand. Then both arms were on her and she was being lowered down until her back pressed against the floorboards.

She needed to get back in control. Leon was perched above her on his elbows. He was wavering, she could see, but not enough. Subtly, she pressed her body up, forcing him to feel her. His breath was hot against her face. Her lips curved up in a hedonistic smile and experienced fingers found his jawbone. They traveled down an imaginary road on his skin, curving under his chin and around his Adam's apple before settling in the dip between his clavicles. His blue eyes glazed over and his shoulders started to relax, swiftly becoming putty in her hands. When his hand slowly began to creep up her side, she knew she had him. Her smile spread wider—that envelope was as good as her's. His palm, so warm and large, slid over her breast and a frantic excitement ran through her veins. Her fingers slid back up and met around the back of his neck, lacing together.

He leaned closer. _Yes,_ the words raced through her mind, _Touch me. Love me._ His eyes widened like he'd heard the thought, and then he was gone.

She experienced a moment of shock. _Love me?_ She repeated in her head, disturbed by how much the loss of his warm weight bothered her. Then she noticed his stare and wiped her face and mind of it. _He's got the envelope. Get up._

Leon was patting his pockets. He couldn't have been more obvious if he'd tried. She rolled onto her feet like a cat and straightened, putting on a coy smile. Fooling her once was more than enough. It wouldn't happen again.

"I'm not going to play this little game with you, Ada. We've done it too many times and we both know how it ends," he said when he finally had composed himself. It took much longer than it'd taken her to, she noticed. Her wounded pride took a small comfort in this.

She eyed him like a predator. _I beg to differ, Leon._ **We** _do not know how it ends,_ **I** _know how it ends. And that's with that envelope in my hands._ Her smile still in place, she replied in a teasing voice. "But it's so much fun."

She started walking towards him, but he backed up. "Maybe for you. I'm done playing games."

 _We'll see about that,_ she thought dangerously and kept walking. "I think you're playing one right now."

His face turned angry and he stopped backing up. _Wrong move,_ she commented silently. "When have _I_ ever been one to play games with _you_?" he asked, appalled.

She kept her smile sultry and took another step toward him. She kept going until she was right in front of him. Her hands reached out and grasped his sides, pulling his body flush against her. She ignored the thrill it gave her, taking note of his reaction instead. He shuddered, strands of his silky hair falling over his brow as it tilted down. _Good,_ she thought and slid her hands down slowly to the waistband of his pants…

…and the lump in his pocket.

His eyes jerked back open and then his hands were at her shoulders, pushing her away. He broke away from her and scrambled out of the office as if someone was chasing him. _Someone is,_ she thought darkly and followed him out at a much calmer pace.

"Don't tease me, Ada," he warned in a low voice, sending her a dirty look over his shoulder as he fled to the living room.

She smiled sweetly even though he had looked away and could no longer see her. "Who says I was teasing?"

When she reached him he was staring at the door, obviously considering leaving with just the envelope. It'd be a gamble for sure, but knowing Leon's instincts it was probably exactly what he shouldn't be finding.

Apparently making his decision, he turned to her abruptly and announced, "Well, I obviously won't be able to get anything done with you here. I'm going now."

Hunting down whatever was in that envelope after he left would be a pain. She needed more time. With a few quick steps she was close enough to grab him, and she did. Her fingers closed around his wrist and held tight, though he didn't struggle. "Really, Leon? I was enjoying our little reunion." She gripped his wrist a little tighter.

He looked back at her and for a moment his face seemed helplessly lost in desire. Then he blinked and jerked away from her. She wanted to growl in frustration, but kept her face smooth.

A sharp rapping on the door stopped either of them from speaking. They both turned as Greg stepped inside. Ada felt her annoyance dissolving as the receptionist took them in and began to eye them speculatively. He looked to Leon, then back to her. _Ah, yes,_ she thought, wanting to roll her eyes, _I see why he's here._

It was one thing for a scorned "girlfriend" to come up to her boyfriend's apartment alone, but having another man around was incriminating. For all Greg knew, they could have been having revenge sex on Isaac's bed. She found herself smirking at the thought while Leon stammered out a greeting.

"Uh," he said awkwardly before clearing his throat and continuing, "Hello Greg."

"Hello to yourself," Greg snapped. He didn't look happy to be here. "You two have been up here a while, and I need to make sure you aren't…stealing anything from Dr. Redfern." He shot Ada a pointed look and her grin widened.

Leon was oblivious.

"No need to worry, Greg," she started casually, "I was just looking for a pair of my panties that I left here the last time I was over." She punctuated the sentence with a particularly scandalous smirk in Leon's direction.

Greg started mumbling under his breath, and she truly had to restrain a laugh. "Oh yeah, I bet," he grumbled and glowered at her. As amusing as it was, he clearly wasn't going to leave and that meant her time was up.

She strode forward toward the door, putting her hands up in a gesture of mock surrender as she passed the receptionist. "Don't worry, _my_ pockets are empty." She sent Leon a smirk and batted her eyes playfully. "See you around, Leon."


	4. Bad Intentions

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Hey guys… So, it's been a while. Sorry about that. I hope some of you have hung in there. I'd be happy to hear from you. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter, and the, uh, "action" that goes on in it. Fun with bathtubs, anyone? Ada's perspective brings a whole new slant to it.

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Resident Evil!

 **Chapter 4:**

 **Bad intentions**

She wanted to follow him when he left, but tided herself over by watching him leave from the rooftop instead. It drove her crazy to not know what he was driving off with, but chasing after him wasn't an option. After watching Leon's car leave the lot, she made her way down to her own vehicle. There was other business to attend to.

Surveillance operations required preparation. There was every likelihood that this assignment could stretch on for weeks. She needed supplies, which meant a trip to one of her employer's nearby safe houses.

She parked at a distance from the small laundromat that served as a cover for the illicit establishment. It would take five minutes to walk there, but she made it into twowith the help of her grapple gun. Night had settled in when she arrived. The transaction took more time than she'd wanted. The aging woman attending the shop was fussy and paranoid, making Ada recite a ridiculous passcode before letting her gather supplies. Every moment that passed was another moment Leon could be stashing that envelope somewhere, or reading whatever damning information it contained.

Orion wouldn't be happy about this. They might even give her a pay deduction.

When she left the shop with a small black duffel bag, a cold rain had begun. Halfway to her car it turned into a snowy slush that stuck to her bare skin. It was easy to tune out the cold—she was used to doing it—but she'd need to find a jacket soon. Getting sick wouldn't help her any in this mission, but that wasn't the only reason to find shelter from this quickly souring weather; this rain was doing horrible things to her hair.

She had just thrown the duffel bag in the backseat when her thigh started buzzing. The Liberati must finally be calling. _A little slow on the uptake, aren't they?_ She pulled the phone out and pressed it to her ear. "I thought you'd forgotten about me," she teased before they even had a chance to speak, "You know, I don't like it when men don't call."

"Miss Wong," the quiet, hushed voice greeted nervously, "Are you alone?"

She restrained a sigh. _Do they really have to ask?_ "Quite," she answered, slamming the back door shut and sliding into the driver's side, "Actually, I'm feeling a tad bit lonely, if you're offering."

The soft-voiced man was confused. "Are…do you need help? Has Orion discovered something?"

It surprised her that she'd gotten a rise out of the goon at all. Then again, the Liberati had always been a bit…odd. They were hypocritically moral. Run by a group of extremists clinging to some archaic nonsense, they claimed that ending corruption in the world was only possible through the selective assassination of anyone who didn't agree with them. It hadn't occurred to them yet that this was how the rest of the world worked as well, and this amused her to no end.

Still, she was in a hurry and would rather they just get to the point. "I'll be fine."

"Right," he agreed a little too quickly. She wondered if he was new to the job. He sounded young. "We have an assignment for you."

 _Surprise, surprise…_ "Oh?" she answered, faking interest. She wasn't expecting this to be any different than before. Leon had managed to attract some dangerous attention, but that wasn't a surprise. He _was_ a rather interesting specimen, after all… In the back of her mind she started planning the rest of her evening. First, she needed to get back into the city and find a place to stash her car. Then she'd need to approach Leon's apartment (undetected, of course) and find a suitable place that had a decent view of his building. Preferably it would be abandoned. Setting up security would come next; she'd need to scope out the exits and put down motion sensors…

"We need you to get a DNA sample from a government agent."

She stopped planning her night. "What?"

"We need a sample of DNA from a government agent," he repeated, "We'll send you the information on him later."

Her head cocked to the side. _What?_ They wanted her to send them a sample of Leon's DNA?

The man (who might've actually been a teenager by the sound of his voice) continued, unaware of her confusion. "It's important that it be high quality. Not only that, but we'd like a fairly substantial sample—blood, if possible. We can offer you supplies, if you need them."

A foul and defensive creature stirred in her chest. They didn't want to just _watch_ him, they wanted to _study_ him. Like a lab rat. Despite the fact that no one was watching her, she forced the revulsion to stay out of her face. "You want a blood sample from a government agent?" she clarified. Her voice was impassive. Her thoughts were not.

"If you can, yes. Also, if you could keep an eye on the agent, we'd appreciate it."

Now _this_ was sounding more familiar and less detestable. "You want me to let you know of any suspicious behavior? Stop him from finding out your secrets?"

"No, not really. We just want you to watch him for anything…strange."

"Strange," she repeated, irritation beginning to sneak into her voice. Why did they have to keep surprising her? "Strange how?"

"Things that make him seem…" the man stumbled over his words for a moment, "…odd. Or, err, not odd. Different from the rest. Unusual feats of strength or dexterity. Keen instincts. That sort of thing."

 _But he's a highly trained government agent,_ she wanted to argue. He displayed unusual feats of strength every day. And his instincts were almost as good as her own. Finally, she just shook her head. "…fine."

"You can do it?" His voice cracked a little with excitement. _They hired a teenager to contact me. How flattering._

Idiots.

Her lips pressed together as she forced the irate tone out of her voice, keeping it bored and mildly cautious instead. "I'll try. But it'll take a while. And it won't be easy." There were real reasons for her to balk at this assignment. Getting a substantial DNA sample from _any_ government agent without them noticing would've been difficult. But getting a _blood_ sample from _Leon_ would be near impossible. No amount of seduction and eye-batting would make a syringe seem normal.

"We understand, and we'll compensate you for it," he replied, his voice gone soft again. A second later he whispered carefully, "Thank you."

Then she hung up on him.

Ada put the phone back, disgusted. If a sample of Leon's blood happened to magically leap into her hands, she'd _consider_ handing it over to them. Until that time, the sick bastards could just live with her surveillance instead. It didn't even make sense why they had to ask for _her_ help, anyway. _Why don't they just bribe his doctor?_

She let out a slow breath and the anger seeped out of her. When her mind was completely clear, she started the car and headed into the city.

* * *

It was late when she arrived at Leon's apartment. She didn't enter, but instead watched it from the safety of a nearby alleyway. No matter how much she wanted to sneak in and steal that envelope away from him, she knew it would be foolish to try right now. Leon would still be spooked from their previous encounter.

And there was still the matter of her hideout to attend to.

The building across from Leon's used to be an office complex, but it had fallen into disarray and was scheduled to be demolished in six months. According to the city record, it had been empty for five years. The structure would be stable andfree of any unwanted guests—the boarded up doors at street level would make sure of that. A flimsy fire escape leading to the roof appeared to be the only other way in. And of course, it had a direct view of Leon's apartment.

It would be perfect.

With a shot of her grapple gun she was soaring up and over the roof's edge. Her feet splashed into a small puddle as she landed; the snow from earlier had receded back into a light drizzle, leaving the world wet and shiny. Cold water seeped between her toes and she wrinkled her nose in distaste. _How unpleasant._

There was an un-boarded door up here, which had been what she was hoping for. It would be best if she left no evidence of her stay, and forcibly breaking into the place could attract attention. The door led to a dark stairwell that descended into the depths of the building. She crept down it quietly and searched the building.

It was empty, as she'd originally expected. _Good._ She chose a room on the second floor to camp out in. It had a window facing Leon's apartment, and someone had left a mattress in the corner. If she bothered to sleep at all during this endeavor, it could prove useful. Of course, sleeping while alone in the field was usually a foolishly overconfident move. She'd lived in the shadows long enough to know that true safety was a myth, even with the best defenses imaginable.

A dilapidated little bathroom sat to the right of the doorway as she entered. The tub was rusted, but the sink still worked. The mirror hanging above the basin was cloudy, but worked well enough to check her hair when she cast a glance at it.

She deposited the duffel bag at the base of the mattress, right next to the window, and got to work. Motion sensors went up in the hallway and stairwells leading to her impromptu haven. She linked them to her PDA and rigged them to go off only once before needing to be reset; if a large group decided to swarm her, she didn't need it going off every few seconds and alerting enemies to her presence.

Before hunkering down for the night, she snuck into Leon's apartment building and hid a motion sensor on his front door. This time she programed the sensor to react to movement _without_ needing to be reset. Unlike the sensors guarding her hideout across the street, this one would be useful as more than just a warning system.

When everything had been set up, she returned to the abandoned building. It was approaching a quarter past 3 am. The mattress awaited her but she didn't sit on it, instead choosing to fold her legs neatly underneath her by the edge of the window. It would be out of sight of any snipers, should anyone else be scoping out this place.

She closed her eyes and tuned out the apartment, making use of one of the more unorthodox skills she'd learned over the years. Her attention turned inward, focusing on her body and easing out all tension from her muscles. She took a slow breath in, letting the air fill up her chest to the brim. With a practiced mental hand she gathered up all her thoughts and let them flow out as she exhaled, clearing the landscape of her mind.

With enough concentration she could slow her body down and even stall her metabolism for a time. It had been a pain to learn but was an invaluable tool on long-term missions like this. She could wake from this meditation easily if there was danger near, while sleep would leave her unaware and defenseless.

 _Breathe in, breathe out._ Her heart beat a steady, slow rhythm. She cleared her mind again.

All that was left to do was wait.

* * *

Her PDA jingled. She opened her eyes and rediscovered the empty apartment, now colored with the warm yellow light of morning. Her muscles flexed and she reached for the device. It was just past 7:30 am, and Leon had left his apartment.

She stood and watched from the window as his car emerged from the attached garage a minute later. He would be heading to work, which meant there was no reason for her to follow. There were enough eyes on him there as it was; she'd be informed if he left. It was time to see what Leon had decided in regard to that envelope. If she was very lucky and Leon was very stupid, then he would have left it in his apartment.

She wouldn't find it in his apartment, she was sure. But there was a possibility she might find something _else_ that would at least tell her what was in the envelope to begin with. And if he _did_ have any secrets, she planned to find them out.

Ada went around the back of his building and kept her head down as she entered. Unlike her tryst with Isaac, she had to be careful not to be seen snooping outside Leon's apartment. There was no convenient excuse for her presence here, so it would be best for all involved if she remained unnoticed.

She made certain that no one was in the hallway before kneeling in front of his door. Her tools slid in the lock and worked quickly, coaxing it open like an old friend. It wasn't the first time she'd been here, after all. The door clicked after a moment, yielding to her touch. She smiled and pushed inside. Both he and his apartment had a weakness for her, it would seem.

A familiar sight greeted her. The bare walls and sparsely stocked kitchen, the unattractive blue couch that made up for its appearance by being astoundingly comfortable…there was a dark stain on one of the couch cushions that hadn't been there before. It looked like chocolate.

She smirked to herself. _Leon, you slob._ He might not be around right now, but that didn't mean she couldn't tease him.

She slipped into his bedroom where the bed was still unmade. Half the sheets were on the floor. _Bad night?_ She wondered. If this was his reaction to whatever was in that envelope, then she might've screwed up bigger than she'd originally thought. Just how bad was it?

Her eyes fell on a small yellow slip of paper at the base of his nightstand. She recognized Isaac's handwriting and snatched it up.

 _Keep for personal records._

Hmmm. Had this been in the envelope? It must have, as she was certain Leon hadn't walked off with anything else from Isaac's apartment. She checked around the rest of the apartment, taking great care not to disturb anything, but found no envelope.

 _Either he's hidden it very well, or he took it with him to turn into his superiors._ Knowing Leon, he was probably planning on turning it in like a good little boy. She took the note with her and left the apartment. She'd find out soon enough.

Leon ate outside at a small ice cream parlor during his lunch break. The chill in the air didn't seem to bother him. She watched from afar, sipping tea at a bistro with tinted windows a few shops down. He looked anxious and fidgeted his knee up and down as he ate. Halfway through the meal he seemed to realize what he was doing and the twitching suddenly stopped. She saw his shoulders rise and fall like he was sighing. A hand absently drifted to a pocket on his shirt. _He's keeping it on his person,_ she noted. Whatever secrets he'd found hiding in that envelope must have been weighing on him.

A small frown worked its way onto her lips. _He's not ready for this._ How could he be? Even when sloshing through the infested sewers of Raccoon city, Leon always had an unshakable faith that good existed in the world and it was worth fighting for. He clearly believed that he fought for the _good_ side, the right side. What would it do to him when he found out that there _was_ no right side?

Leon threw away a half-eaten hamburger and walked back to his building. She watched him go, then finished her own lunch. The waiter flirted with her and tried to get her number. She scrawled down the number for a Sex Addiction hotline and left the bistro.

He wouldn't be bothering her again after he tried that tonight.

An hour before Leon was scheduled to get back, she returned to his apartment. If he turned the envelope in, then she'd get him to tell her. If he still had it, then she'd take it for herself.

She found a plate of cupcakes in his fridge and helped herself to one. After a moment of thought she took out a second one and left it on the counter. _Leon's had a long day,_ she thought mischievously, _He deserves a reward._ Then she tucked herself into a dark corner behind his dresser and waited.

The trap was baited and set.

The door to his apartment opened thirty minutes later. She heard his feet shuffle across the floor, then abruptly stop when he reached the kitchen. He was looking at the cupcake, she knew. If she concentrated hard enough she almost thought she could _feel_ his confusion. _Did I put that there?_ He must be thinking. She smiled. _No, Leon, you didn't._

After a moment he continued on and the door to his bedroom opened. Light shone in from the living room but the bedroom stayed dark. _Fine by me,_ she thought and watched his reflection move in the window next to his bed. He stood still for several seconds in the dark. _Why Leon, you look a little stressed…_

A car alarm started somewhere outside and he jumped slightly. He looked towards the window briefly and she caught sight of his wide eyes. Yes, he was definitely stressed… _What did he find in that envelope?_ She thought in frustration.

Leon sank down to his bed and rested his head on his hands. His back hunched into a curve and his shoulders sunk in defeat. If she listened close enough, she could hear him breathing. Aside from the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders, he was still. _He's so tired…_ Something in her chest tugged at the sight. Despite the fact that he didn't know she was here, she felt strangely connected to this supposedly private moment. It felt…oddly intimate, like she was beside him rather than hiding in the shadows. It tingled, just a little.

He moved slowly, shifting his legs as he kicked his shoes off. His pants came next, which he slithered out of in a lazy wiggle that didn't require him to stand. They fell to the floor with a soft thump. Leaving his shirt on, he meandered over to the bathroom and turned on the light. It made her shadowy hiding spot even smaller and she instinctively pressed herself closer to the wall.

She should make her move soon now. He was distracted and vulnerable, which would make her job exceedingly easy. The answers would flow out of him with minimal effort on her part. And there was always the matter of her wounded pride to attend to—he'd managed to escape her at Isaac's apartment, and she would _not_ let that happen again. But still she hesitated. Doubt grew in the wake of the strangely tender moment she had privately shared with him a minute ago.

Her eyes jerked back to the reflection when the sound of running water reached her ears. Through the doorway she saw Leon bent over his tub as he adjusted the temperature. Her thoughts drifted to the bath she'd been so rudely denied many nights ago when her bracelet had started chiming. _So Leon likes a bath after a long day?_ How amusing it was that their tastes were so similar.

He slipped his boxers off and she caught sight of his bare backside, blurry through the reflection. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and took great care in balancing it over the toilet that sat next to the tub. _Ah yes. That shirt._ She remembered him patting his breast pocket at lunch. _So that's where he's hidden it._ Now completely nude, Leon turned off the water and stepped into the tub.

It was _too_ tempting.

She stood quietly and risked a peak around the side of his dresser. His back was facing her—the toilet where he'd left his shirt sat on the far wall, clearly in his view. Muscular shoulders rose over the edge of the basin. He rested one long arm on the lip and sighed, leaning his head back. She watched tendrils of steam rise up from the water enviously.

A plan hatched in her head and she slipped her gun holster off her thigh. She hid it along with the phone from her bra underneath his dresser. The bracelet, unfortunately, would have to stay on. They would know if she took it off, and the controlling bastards already knew enough as it was.

She approached the bathroom gleefully and felt herself smirk. A bath sounded awfully nice. _And he remembered to bring my favorite toy,_ she thought mischievously and eyed his smooth face and sculpted shoulders with a hint of greed.

"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" she called just outside the doorway.

His muscles tensed—she could _see_ them flex—and he jerked his head and shoulders around to see her. She stepped through the doorway and into the light, smiling sweetly. For a second his eyes widened in shock, but then an angry scowl took over his face. "Ada!"

"Present," she replied and clasped her hands in front of her, just like a good little school girl. Inwardly she smirked. _Let his fantasies run wild._

"What are you doing sneaking around in my apartment, Ada?" he asked in a voice somewhere between nervousness and anger. In the brief moment before she responded his head tilted to the side slightly and he glanced toward his shirt.

Part of her wanted to laugh. _Very subtle, Leon._ "Maybe I just wanted to drop by and try the cupcake you had hidden in the fridge." she offered and crept a few steps closer to him. His hands slid under the water and cupped himself protectively. Her eyes flickered back up to his face, fighting a stronger urge to laugh at him now.

"So that was you?" he snapped at her, his whole body tense and _oh,_ what a sight it was. "What, was that your way of letting me know you were planning a visit?"

Her smile widened and she pointedly eyed the hands still cupped between his thighs. _I bet you would_ like _me to plan a visit alright…_ "I'm sorry, Leon," she teased in a light voice, "I didn't realize it would get you so… _hot_ and _bothered._ " His shoulders were rising quicker now, his eyes locked on her. She could see her effect on him, and the control it gave her was delicious…but it was also horribly unfair. _I think it's time to even the playing field,_ she thought and grinned. Her thumbs hooked in the waistband of her skirt and pulled.

Leon's mouth fell open.

By the look on his face, he appreciated her choice in lingerie. " _Leave_ Ada," he demanded, almost begging, "You're not welcome here."

Well that wasn't nice. _Good thing I'm such a forgiving person,_ she mused and stepped out of her heels. She slithered out of the stolen halter top and reveled in the way his eyes drank her in. His face had become flushed at some point, either from the water or from her teasing. She stepped towards him and he shrank back, but there was nowhere for him to run. "Am I making your uncomfortable, Leon?" she taunted. When he didn't respond she lifted her leg and dipped a toe in the water about an inch from his arm. It was delightfully hot.

He gulped and stared at her with narrowed eyes. "What do you want, Ada?" He was so tense. It was so clear that he wanted to run. _There's nowhere for you to go._

As if in response to her words, he shifted in the tub until he was at the other side. His torso was farther away from her now, but his back had turned to the shirt. She wondered what he would do if she tried to fish through his pockets right now. Would he fight her naked?

 _Mmm,_ she thought, _that's almost appealing…_ But then she wouldn't get to have a bath.

In a deliberate movement she stepped into the tub, between his feet. Immediately he yanked his feet away and pulled his knees to his chest, still trying to be as far away from her as possible. The extra room was as much invitation as she needed, so she stepped in further and sat down. Water sloshed over the side and Leon gaped at her like a frightened animal.

Ada pulled her knees to her chest, making room in the tight space. He stared at her, looking both helpless and impossibly frustrated. _Why so shy?_ "What?" she asked innocently, "Can't a girl enjoy a nice bath?"

He actually snorted. "Really?" he asked, incredulous. "You expect me to believe _that?_ You still have your underwear on for goodness sakes!"

Now _that_ was an invitation. She grinned at him as a look of dawning realization crossed his face. "You are absolutely right, Leon. How silly of me," she said emphatically and moved her hands behind her back. Leon leaned away from her as her fingers found the hooks and unclipped them. The bra came off quickly and she tossed it to the floor, her breasts now only hidden by the tops of her knees.

He tried to say something, maybe to futilely ask her to leave again, but his mouth snapped shut when she slid her panties off. She pretended not to notice and instead allowed herself to relax into the back of the tub. "That's better," she breathed. Her eyes slid closed, but she kept her ears attuned to him.

He gulped loud enough for her to hear it and she repressed a smile. She let her legs drift apart slightly, but kept her ankles crossed just to tease him. His sudden movement sent warm currents through the water toward her. She cracked her eyes open a fraction to see him pressing himself tightly against the back to the tub again. It couldn't be comfortable.

She trailed a hand over her chest and saw his eyes glaze over. With his knees blocking his lower body, his hands shifted to fist at his thighs. His jaw was clenched with strain. _Just a little further,_ she thought. "You're so quiet…" she remarked, lifting her head, "Something on your mind?" Her eyes opened and she stared at him from under her lashes.

He was angry, but his breaking point was close. His blue eyes were dark with large, dilated pupils—a sure sign of his desire. He grew defensive at her question and snapped at her. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

She didn't hesitate. "I would. Care to enlighten me?" She raised a suggestive eyebrow, hoping to provoke a response. Instead he stayed silent, obviously still clinging to whatever restraint he had left. It was almost impressive how he'd resisted; Leon's control was truly remarkable.

 _But it won't be enough,_ she thought. It was time to take out the big guns.

She moved quickly, pushing his legs aside and pressing herself to his chest before he had time to even blink. Her hands slid up the tendons in his shoulders and kept going until they met the still dry hair at the base of his skull.

He sucked in a short, startled breath.

The piece of anatomy that he'd tried so hard to hide earlier was now pressing into her stomach. She laughed internally and grinned at him. His face was close. His pupils were _huge._ "Someone's happy to see me," she teased lightly into his ear, holding back a chuckle.

He managed to turn his head to meet her eye. Their cheeks brushed. "Ada," he started, a pleading tone to his voice, "This is wrong."

His warm breath fanned over her face, all traces of anger gone. He wasn't pretending anymore—just desperate. His eyes begged: _Please. Not like this._

Her breath caught in an instant of hesitation. Guilt was not an emotion she often felt, but it ate at her now, tainting her pleasure. Her thoughts raced back to the moment in his bedroom when she'd felt that strange intimacy, almost like _she_ could feel his fatigue, his pain. _This is wrong,_ his words repeated in her head. _You're using him for your own selfish pleasure,_ her own conscience joined in, _you're taking something from him that he can't get back._ She remembered the slumping of his shoulders, and that tired sigh…

Then she remembered the bracelet at her wrist, and the fact that she hadn't listened to her conscience in years.

She pushed the thoughts from her mind and pressed closer to him, focusing instead on the arousal that had begun pooling within her at the first sight of his bare skin. "So wrong, I know." She breathed the words into his skin, slowly trailing down until she met his lips.

It might've been selfish, but _damn_ it felt good.

Leon responded more quickly than she'd expected and with much more enthusiasm. His hands were suddenly at her waist, pulling her down to him as his lips pushed against hers with the need of a starving man.

It was the first time she'd kissed him since she had died, and she should've been prepared. She should've been, but she wasn't. He bit her lip and she opened her mouth instinctively. His tongue pushed its way inside, fighting her for dominance. Her skin seemed to light fire as his passion spilled over and into her like a disease of her own creation. She caught it on the short panting breaths he let out when they briefly broke apart so she could tilt her head to the side. It bled through his skin as he moved his hands over her back and down. One found its way into her hair and her whole scalp tingled. The other slipped over her thigh and tugged, trying to get her to straddle him.

Her mind woke back up. She remembered why she was doing this, and the realization hit her like a cold bucket of water. He tugged on her thigh again and she reluctantly obliged him, if only briefly. She'd wanted to seduce him and steal the envelope back from him—not sleep with him.

He pulled her a little closer and she started to panic. _No, no, no, no_ … She couldn't sleep with him. He was different from the others. He was good. No, better than good. Virtuous. Practically a saint when compared to her. He didn't deserve this.

She needed to end this. _Now._

Still kissing him back, she reached toward his shirt that was still hanging on the toilet seat. Her fingers found his pocket and discovered not an envelope, but something hard and small instead. Whatever it was, he'd been trying very hard to hide it, which meant it was important. Her fist closed around the object and she pulled away from him.

In an instant she was out of the tub and pulling on her skirt and halter top. Leon was still sitting in the tub, staring and dazed. His face slowly started to darken as he took in the sight. In her haste to get into his pocket, she'd knocked his shirt to the floor. This detail did not escape him.

A foul glare marred his features, and it was all for her. "You are a piece of work, you know that?"

His anger was back, but she deserved it. She hovered in the doorway for a moment, pretending to straighten her clothes and avoiding his gaze. "It's always a pleasure, but I've got a ride to catch."

"Bullshit," he snarled at her.

She forced herself to meet his gaze and sent him a coy smile. "Thanks for the bath," she called as she left the room.

As soon as she was hidden amongst the shadows again, she hurried back to his dresser and started pulling on her gun holster. Just as she grabbed the phone that normally was tucked in her bra, Leon called out to her.

"You forgot your panties," he taunted from the bathroom.

She let out a silent, unamused chuckle and slipped the phone into her shirt before responding in a dry voice, "Consider them a souvenir." The nearest exit was his window and she took it, desperate to leave before she made yet _another_ mistake.


	5. Tick Tock

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Sorry for the wait! I've been busy with work, but I'm still here!

Disclaimer: I do not own or make money off of Resident Evil.

 **Chapter 5:**

 **Tick Tock**

Ada glared at the line of clothing racks, furious with herself for having gotten carried away _again._ She hadn't spent years training herself to control her actions just to end up dizzy and doe eyed from the very man she was _supposed_ to be seducing. Granted, Leon was quite a talented man, especially when it came to kissing. But that was all the more reason why she shouldn't have screwed up. Letting herself get carried away like that was sloppy. In the end, it would only make her job more difficult and cause him unnecessary pain.

 _Why do you care at all?_ Part of her argued. _If it helps the mission go forward and gets you a paycheck, what's the problem?_ She frowned at that, then erased the expression when she caught the store clerk looking at her. _I'm not completely heartless,_ she argued back. Just because she ruined most of the lives she touched didn't mean she had to ruin _all_ of them. She wasn't the monster who'd dissolved Panacea's scientists into a bloody soup.

The memory made her want to retch.

She grabbed an ankle length gown with dark black and red designs trailing up the bodice. The clerk gave a speculative glance down to the price tag when Ada approached. The dress cost five hundred dollars. She slid the dress onto the counter and announced in a bored voice, "I'm buying this."

The woman tried to speak but let out only a squeak as Ada pulled out five one hundred dollar bills. She threw in a fifty to cover tax, then left with the dress in tow before the woman had managed to say anything else. She changed in the dirty bathroom of a bar across the street and left the stolen clothes there. Who knew, maybe they'd find a way back to their original owner.

Once clad in a new dress and underwear, she returned back to the abandoned building across from Leon's. The object she'd stolen from him turned out to be a jump drive, and the information on it was fairly damming. Isaac had somehow managed to compile a list of e-mails from one of his chief investors that contained a slurry of veiled threats and alluded to a third party tampering with his research. While the name of the investor wasn't familiar, she knew who they worked for and it wasn't good news. Orion would not be happy.

As a branch of the government that officially did not exist and specialized in doing the dirty work of politics, they were not someone you'd want to piss off. They worked through brute force and kept out of the public eye by eliminating all liabilities before they could cause problems. This usually involved shooting first and asking questions later. She would have to figure out a way to pacify them before they did something stupid like send a hit squad for her—or worse, for Leon. _That_ would be a headache to manage. But first, she had to make a different call to her least favorite and most demanding masters.

The bracelet flared to life under her touch. "Yes, Miss Wong?" the familiar woman's voice responded after a moment. "Have you received your assignments yet?"

They should've known that answer, since they almost certainly had moles within both companies. Still, she obliged them with a response. "Orion has asked me to supervise a government agent. They want me to turn him, if possible. I've had no serious problems, but he did manage to get ahold of a jump drive with some incriminating evidence on it. It's in my possession now, but he may have looked at it."

The woman's voice betrayed no concern. Something as trivial as this wouldn't be important enough for their attention. "Send us a copy of the information when you get the chance. Now, what of the Liberati? Have you received their assignment?"

She hesitated. The instructions she'd gotten from the Liberati were as disturbing as they were bizarre. Their eagerness to hear about it was somewhat disconcerting. Did they _actually_ not know, or were they just excited to force her to say it, pinning her to their will like a helpless insect?

The Logo glowing against her palm was the calling card of an organization that ruled the world. Every household owned their products. Every secret would be heard. No one was safe from their control, not even her.

Lies wouldn't help her here. "They're interested in the same government agent," she announced, trying to feign boredom. "They asked for a sample of his DNA—blood if I can get it. It sounds like they want to study him."

A thoughtful hum came out of the tiny speakers. "What did you tell them?"

"I said I'd try," she admitted, "But you can't honestly expect that I'll be able to complete the assignment."

"Why not?"

The innocence in their tone was appalling. She tried to keep it out of her reply, but the words still came out a little biting. "He's one of the most highly trained government agents in the country. Do you really expect me to take a blood sample from him without him noticing?"

"Actually, we'd like you to take two. Send the second one to us."

The lip curling revulsion broke into her expression briefly before she could stop it. She covered it up immediately, but not before the nefarious glowing eye at her wrist had seen. "Something wrong, Miss Wong?" the ever watchful woman's voice asked.

Ada sent the bracelet a curt smile and looked out the window. "Just a bad taste in my mouth."

Tension filled the brief silence. "We understood you to be the best in the business, Miss Wong. Surely this simple task is within your capabilities. Unless, of course…" she paused, letting unspoken threats hang in the thick air, "…we misjudged you. Have we misjudged you, Miss Wong?"

Ada turned her gaze back to the glowing eye. It stared back at her like the barrel of a gun. She sent them a coy smile. "Not at all. You'll have that DNA sample. Just let me trim my nails first."

A short chuckle cut through the suspense and the woman continued. "Yes, of course. But please, don't make us wait too long."

The logo faded and the light died, leaving her alone in the darkness of the abandoned room. She stole a moment for herself, allowing her eyes to rest on Leon's apartment through the window. A second ticked by. Then she sighed, pulled out phone number two and prepared to call Orion.

No rest for the wicked.

* * *

It was about twelve hours before word of Panacea's downfall spread. She drove there in an unfamiliar car—it'd been "acquired" on short notice—and parked in the lot of an adult bookstore some distance away. From the rooftop of a neighboring building, she watched a car pull in to Panacea's already crowded parking lot. Two men got out. The taller of them started toward the building first. Her eyes walked with him to the door.

 _Leon._

She had seen the order for him to investigate the compound this morning. The agency's servers had been easy enough to hack, and it made it simpler to keep track of him during the day. The second man following him must be his new partner—a gift from Orion to help Leon's agency out of their delicate predicament. The name hadn't been familiar, but he was almost certainly a cleaner; he was here to take care of any mess left behind by the involvement of Leon's agency. She paid him little attention at first, but as they drew closer she began to recognize the way he held himself, the stiff but efficient tread, that sickeningly smooth skin. Her eyes narrowed as she recognized him. _Fantastic. The filth is back._

The mole from Panacea had returned, which meant that Leon's new "partner" wasn't just a cleaner from Orion. Apparently she wasn't the only one at her agency who was working multiple organizations. This complicated things. _I need to find out why he's here,_ she thought as she watched them enter the building.

Time for a change of plans.

She shot a grapple over to Panacea's roof and let it pull her over. _I need to get ahead of them,_ she thought and attached her grapple to the rim of the rooftop hatch. The best way to do that would be to beat them to the already had a head start on her, but there was nothing of importance on the first level. She peered down into the dark hole before stepping off the ledge. She switched on her headlamp as she fell. When a vent leading to the basement came into view, she let go of the trigger on her grapple gun and allowed the line to pull taut against her weight. Swinging her body like a pendulum, she threw herself forward and pressed the button to unhook her grapple. For a moment she was weightless as her momentum carried her forward, then she slid into the open vent.

A few minutes later she was slipping out of the vent and into the second floor maintenance room. She landed on her toes with the softest of clicks, then sat frozen for a moment, listening.

The facility was quiet. Cautiously she peaked out the doorway and then stepped out into the hall. There were two things to be wary of—the first was the facility itself. Isaac had worked with dangerous pathogens, and any of them could have been released during the compound's fall.

The second was that somewhere above her, Leon and the mole were moving about the facility. Meeting either of them on their own would not be a problem, but together they'd pose a significant threat. Neither of them could be allowed to see the reactions of the other to her presence. Leon was in a precarious situation as it was; she didn't need him getting caught in the crossfire.

At some point the mole would need to go off on his own in order to do his dirty work. That was when she'd strike. She walked Panacea's abandoned basement hallways in silence, scanning the area with alert eyes and ears. In the distance she heard the low whine of the elevator: they were coming to meet her. She ducked into the middle hallway where one of the lights had gone out and pressed herself into a corner.

Five minutes later, a door some distance down and across the hall opened. It made no sound. The form of a man slipped out—the mole—and carefully closed the door behind him. He looked both ways, first to the light end that would take him to the basement, then to the dark corridor where she currently hid. Despite her blanket of darkness, his eyes lingered in her general direction. It made her skin crawl, but she didn't move. _He can't see me,_ she assured herself. She knew his limits; it would be beyond stupid not to. But still his gaze hovered around her corner, like he could _sense_ her presence there. His grey eyes reflected the flickering light above his head, almost appearing to glow.

Finally he turned away and started quickly marching down the hallway, his feet still not making a sound. It was eerie how quiet he was, even to her. But at least he was moving now. _Monsters with missions don't have time to worry about other monsters,_ she thought as her eyes followed him down the hallway. _Unless of course, the other monster_ is _the mission…_ He disappeared around the corner and she moved to follow.

The door opened again and she pushed herself back against the wall. Leon stepped out, his attractive features marred by an uneasy frown. His footsteps weren't loud, but even still the quiet footfalls echoed in the empty corridor. Compared to the silent phantom who'd floated down the hallway just prior, it was blessedly human. Leon turned toward the light and dark ends of the hall, clearly unfamiliar with the area and unhappy with the fact. _It's better if you don't know,_ she whispered to him in her mind.

A scratching sound came from a room a few doors down from her. It was one of the few rooms that was still lit; someone must have left the light on. She recognized it as the rat labs, where they injected the small creatures with all matter of poisons to appease their scientific curiosity.

Leon's head snapped in the direction of the sound and his face grew determined. He pulled out his gun and started walking toward the door. _Jumpy, are we?_ She couldn't resist silently teasing as he made his way to the door. He stepped inside, and the door closed behind him.

She bit her lip and tried to stifle the excitement that was beginning to build in her stomach. This was the first time she'd seen him since their _encounter_ in the bathtub last night. It was such a tempting thought, to make herself known to him now, to tease him until that boyish blush returned to his cheeks. _No,_ she ordered herself, _you have other things to be doing here._

Leon emerged from the rat lab looking mildly embarrassed. She smirked. _So tempting…_ She heard him mumble several disgruntled things under his breath, his back to her as he walked toward the light end of the hallway. She needed to corner the mole and find out why he was here, but Leon _was_ the entire reason she was here at all. _I_ am _supposed to be keeping an eye on him,_ she thought and found herself moving forward to the nearest door. It led to a broom closet, but no one else needed to know that. She pushed it open, then let it fall closed with a loud bang.

Leon had turned around and pointed his gun at the noise in the time it took her to look. "Who's there?" he demanded.

 _Nice reflexes,_ she thought, her eyes skimming up and down his tense body in appreciation, _it's no wonder they're all after you._ She walked towards him, not bothering to muffle her heels. "Fancy meeting you here," she called as she stepped out of the darkness.

How fitting it was for them to meet like this, at the merging of light and shadows.

His eyes widened, his jaw going slack in surprise as he lowered his gun. Then his cheeks flushed—ah yes, there was that blush she'd been looking for—and his face twisted in anger. " _Ada?"_

 _Someone looks frustrated._ She smirked. "Why do I feel you're not happy to see me?Something on your mind? Or perhaps…someone?" She stepped closer to him, intentionally swaying her hips.

He backed away from her and his face grew defensive, but his eyes held a heat in them that wasn't from anger. "Don't think the same trick will work twice, Ada," he snapped.

She folded her arms together and feigned innocence. "What trick?"

Leon was still backing away from her. His expression was uncharacteristically grumpy. _Definitely frustrated,_ she decided. "Just tell me what you're doing here."

Ada thought for a moment, watching him closely and enjoying the discomfort it caused him. _How much can he know without really knowing anything?_ "Strange isn't it," she started and looked around them, "that everyone in this compound just disappears all at once?"

A glint of accusation came to his eyes, along with something unhappy that she didn't like. "What's strange is that you just _happen_ to be here at the same time. Did you have something to do with this? With these people disappearing?"

She looked at him fully, almost startled. He was right to not trust her, but it was unusual for him to show it so blatantly. _Did you have something to do with these people disappearing?_ His words repeated in her head. Her mask faltered.

These people hadn't disappeared. They'd been _dissolved,_ turned into a puddle after being locked alive in their respective tombs. The horrifying visual of their deaths was still fresh on her mind. But she hadn't done that—she'd only unlocked the monster who had.

Or so she told herself.

Suddenly weary, she allowed her eyes to slide closed. The reaction was real, but she intentionally made no effort to hide it, knowing that it would distract him. "No," she murmured, not knowing whether she was lying or not, "I didn't."

The topic needed to change, and she wasn't above using her own emotions to do it.

She heard him sigh. His voice was much softer when he spoke again. "Are you going to tell me why you're here or not?"

Ada lifted her lids slightly to peak at his face and meet his sympathetic eyes. That heart of his was so unusually pure in this blackened world. It was his biggest weakness, and her biggest asset. "How about I give you the grand tour instead?" she suggested.

Of course, he agreed.

She walked ahead of him and explained to him where they were in brief terms—that Panacea had two basements, and they were in the first. "You've been through this whole place?" he asked, sounding mildly intrigued.

 _At some point or another,_ she thought, but couldn't tell him that. It would be far too revealing. Instead she said, "Most of it. As far as I can tell, it's nearly empty."

"Nearly?"

He still didn't know about the puddle of scientists upstairs, and she didn't plan on telling him. "We're here, aren't we?" But they weren't the only ones. A bad taste settled in her mouth. "And there's _him,_ of course."

"You're not talking about my partner, are you? Felix?"

 _Felix, huh?_ She allowed herself a mirthless chuckle. _New life, new name, same monster._ He adapted like a virus. "Is that what he's calling himself now?"

Leon was obviously intrigued and followed her more closely, leaning forward to get a good look at her face. "Wait, you know Felix? How?"

She didn't want to talk about it, much less think about it, and there was no reason Leon should know. It wouldn't help her get what she wanted or benefit him in the slightest, so she chose the vaguest explanation she could come up with. "We've had our fair share of encounters in the past. You certainly know how to pick dangerous friends." She sent him a long look, a silent warning.

Leon's face grew nervous. She could see the questions brewing, so she shook her head and turned back to the front, keeping her voice light. "Don't worry. If he'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."

This didn't seem to put him at ease, which was fine with her. The less he trusted "Felix", the better. "Are you telling me he's not an agent?"

The question was ridiculous. Could he honestly not tell? Perhaps she had grown too accustomed to knowing everyone else's secrets. Still, if he didn't know then far be it her place to tell him. There were always eager ears listening.

She let out an airy laugh and teased, "Now I didn't say that, did I?" It would be best not to let him think about that too long, so she continued with her tour. "To our left is the west wing of the first basement, where you and your friend first came down here. And in the other direction, the east wing. It contains mostly offices of head scientists…and if you're feeling adventurous, a stairway that will take you to the restricted second basement."

Leon thought for a moment, staring off to their left. "What about the elevator I came out of? Couldn't that take me to the lower level?"

A smile formed on her lips. _Staying on your toes, I see,_ she quietly praised him, _nice catch._ "Using that elevator to go to the lowest level requires a retinal scan."

Leon's eyebrows shot up and he turned to gape at her. Her smile spread wide over her cheeks; shocking him would never cease to amuse her. "Didn't notice the lens hidden amongst the buttons, did you? They conceal it well."

His gaze was sharp, alternating between her eyes as the information sunk in. "The elevator requires a retinal scan, but the stairway doesn't? It doesn't make much sense for them to lock one door and not the other."

 _Another gold star for Leon,_ she thought, nodding. "That's why the stairway used to be locked with an electronic passcode."

Again, he caught the details she had omitted. "Used to be?"

"It seems that _someone_ hacked into the keypad, and left the door wide open," she half-lied. The door hadn't exactly been _hacked_ so much as deprived of power, and that "someone" had been herself. But again, he didn't need to know that. "So Leon, which way will it be?"

He thought for a moment. She wondered how far ahead their mutual acquaintance was. Was he listening? _It wouldn't surprise me,_ she mused before pushing the repulsive man from her mind.

Leon was looking up at her again, his eyes cautious and intelligent. "You know Felix, right?"

Without her permission, the mole wormed his way back into her thoughts. _A flesh machine made only to follow orders. Not built, but born and sculpted into the ultimate weapon._ Pictures briefly flooded her mind of a faraway place filled with tubes and computers; a lab she'd visited to fulfill her side of a bargain. She locked up the memories in the back of her mind, but still something heavy and sickening remained. Leon continued, unaware. "Is there any reason he would want to go to the lowest level?"

She forced her mind back into the present, letting Leon's question distract her. Leaning back against the wall, she pretended to be thoughtful. "Hmmm, I can't say. The last time I had contact with him was quite some time ago. He could have any number of motivations now." _For example, he could want to clean up the mess your company left here_. "But I am fairly certain that the key to finding out whatever happened here lies down there."

He took another moment to think and she tapped her fingers on the wall in impatience. "I'm waiting."

Leon took a breath and met her eyes. "The east."

"A daring choice," she commented, grinning. "I like your taste." She sent him a wink and caught sight of another blush starting on his face. Her grin didn't fade when she turned away and headed down the hallway.

"So how is it you know Felix again?" Leon wanted to know.

Her mask had safely settled back in place, so she easily brushed the question off with a cryptic answer. "We shared a common interest, once upon a time."

Leon was silent for a very long time, no doubt unsatisfied by her response. Finally, she heard a dark laugh behind her and then, mumbled under his breath, "Give him any _souvenirs_ along the way?"

 _That_ caught her off guard. _Is he asking if I've given Felix my panties?_ Her feet slowed to a stop as laughter bubbled up from deep within her chest. _My, my, so jealous…_ Turning her upper body to face him, she grinned. "I take it you're enjoying my gift, then?"

He didn't respond but instead brushed past her, staring pointedly ahead. However, his face undermined his efforts—it seemed to be stuck in a permanent pout. _I had no idea Leon was so prone to jealousy,_ she mused, _it certainly wasn't in his file…_

Ada hung back, content to watch him from behind as he stiffly marched down the hallway. She had just started to follow again when he paused and walked back to one of the doors. She knew immediately what it led to. _Isaac's office…_

What a perfect opportunity to drive Leon wild.

"Well I'll be," Leon mumbled and then tried to open it. Seconds later he was cursing and turning back to her. "You wouldn't happen to be able to pick locks, would you?"

She sent him one of her most alluring smiles and batted her eyes at him. "Don't have to. I have a key." When she removed the key from the bosom of her dress and showed it to him, his face was a priceless mixture of anger, disbelief, and frustration.

" _Really?"_ he scoffed, _"_ You keep it in your _bra?"_

She craned her head to look at him while she unlocked the door. "I had to keep it safe, didn't I?" She teased and then stepped aside. "It's all yours."

Leon lingered in the open doorway for a moment, watching as she put the key away. Eyes locked on her cleavage, he murmured, "That's not a safe place from my experience."

The whine in his voice was unusual for him—he was practically squirming with unsatisfied desires and a grudging possessiveness. It left him distracted, and vulnerable… "I really got into you head this time," she commented as they stepped into the office.

A determined frown came to his face and his cheeks held a twinge of pink, but he maintained her gaze. "You're not in my head."

Her lips quirked up in triumphant guile. _He fell for that hook, line, and sinker. It's almost too easy._ She leaned back against the wall and said with well-practiced innuendo, "I wasn't talking about the one on your shoulders..."

His cheeks burned a deep crimson when her gaze shifted lower on his body. He looked like he was going to choke, caught between desire and mortification. Then he scuttled away from her like a spooked animal and started rigidly examining the room. She watched in amusement as he avoided looking at her, but otherwise did not interfere. There was nothing of great importance left in this room—she'd made sure of that days ago.

Leon found Isaac's lab notebook in his desk drawer and flipped it open. His eyes darted over to her, then quickly pulled away with another flash of embarrassment. With newfound intensity he studied the book, but a wrinkle formed on his brow as he read. Once again he left himself vulnerable as he became enthralled with the notebook.

She took advantage of his distraction and drew closer to him, creeping up behind him to read over his shoulder. Just as she'd planned to whisper something naughty in his ear, a strange, single tapping noise caught her notice. There was a small dark spot in the center of the notebook page, just a few inches from Leon's thumb.

"That's new," she murmured. Leon jumped a little when he realized how close she'd gotten, but only spared her a brief glance as another dark spot fell on the paper. Both of their heads turned up to find a growing red blotch forming between the ceiling tiles.

She retreated several steps, confused and thrown off by this strange new development. Leon put out a protective hand in front of her as more drips fell, but she paid him little heed. Panacea should have held no secrets for her, and this dark liquid had to be coming from somewhere. "There's something above us," she whispered, going over the layout of the building in her mind. Nothing above them should have been leaking; it was all offices and conference rooms. _Except…_

Nausea rolled in her stomach. The Panic Room. The researchers… _dissolved…_

Leon began to look around the room, but she stayed staring at the red stain on the ceiling. One by one, what remained of Panacea's faculty dripped out of the crack. Distantly she heard Leon mention something about finding a stick to push the tile aside. Keeping a firm hold on her outward mask, she led him to a janitorial closet with a broom. She knew very well what they would find up there—more blood. More dissolved scientists. But there was no choice other than to play along.

When Leon pushed the tile aside with the broom handle, a spatter of deep crimson dribbled out. _It should've dried by now,_ she thought as Leon shone a flashlight into the dark hole. _It shouldn't still be liquid._ There must've been something in the gas that'd been fed into the Panic room, something that kept their fluids from evaporating.

"It's coming from the first floor," Leon was saying, his neck craned up as he peered into the hole. She should've told him to be careful—for all she knew, this disgusting liquid could have the same properties as the tissue dissolving gas from the panic rom. But warning him would imply she knew something. "Ada, do you know what room we're under?"

He was looking at her, she realized. "It's…" she started, but had to pause. Did she tell him the truth? _Whose secrets am I telling?_ She wondered. The only answer that came to mind was a pair of cold, grey eyes. "…a panic room."

A look of horror crossed his face as it dawned on him. _He would've figured it out anyway,_ she told herself, _and then he would know I was hiding something._ Her own eyes returned to the dripping ceiling. Leon started to move about the room but her own gaze remained upward, glued to that dark hole.

"So these people…they went to the panic room. And something killed them in there," Leon said from somewhere off to her side.

She discreetly swallowed. She couldn't look away. "It would seem so."

"But _why_?"

She forced herself to lower her gaze and meet his eyes. They burned with a righteous fury that seemed to come from his very soul. _Play along. You must play along._ "I don't know," she lied and then looked at the door, "But I know where to find out."

Without waiting, she walked out of the office and started down the hallway. His footsteps followed closely behind. "What I don't understand is where you fit in all this."

Ada didn't pause or look back. "There are some things you're better off not knowing."

Leon's voice grew louder in anger. "Why are you even helping me?"

 _I'm not,_ came her silent answer, but she choose to remain quiet rather than let such dangerous truths slip out.

He continued on in a low, frustrated tone. "We've met maybe half a dozen times. Whatever this is between us, we know next to nothing about each other."

A wealth of information flowed through her head: his high school prom date, his blood type, his favorite TV show, pants size, how he liked his coffee…the soft clicking of her heels ended and she realized that she had stopped walking. _He doesn't know. He's a blind man in a minefield and he doesn't even know._

"Ada?" he called from behind her, confusion leaking into his voice.

She had to give him _something._

"I know _everything_ about you, Leon," she whispered. It was everything and nothing all in one. _They're watching you._ I'm _watching you._

His footsteps picked up again until he stood beside her. "I don't understand," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. She turned to look at him and met his widened eyes. They were wary and vaguely concerned, but there was something sweet hidden behind them. Something…almost hopeful. A bright, but fragile flame. _It would be so easy to snuff it out…_

If he could just understand, then he might stand a chance.

Her feet carried her closer and she tried again. "I know more about you than your own mother."

He looked down at her, his broad shoulders rising and falling. "What…" he croaked, then paused. The muscles in his throat flexed as he swallowed. "What are you talking about?"

Their eyes met, blurring the lines between her world and his. The hallway around them receded from her awareness as something warm bloomed in her chest. Alarm bells went off at the edges of her mind. _You've grown too soft, too sympathetic. You need to leave._ Despite the warnings, she reached out a hand to touch the faint scar that'd been left on his cheek by Krauser's knife. _I have to give him something…_ "Leon…" she breathed, the truth hanging in the air between them.

Leon blinked and shook his head, pulling away. He looked like he'd just come out of a trance. _Maybe he did,_ she mused darkly, _maybe I put him there. Maybe I can't control it anymore._ He stepped back again, shaking his head as the clarity returned to his gaze. "Ada, you're not making any—"

A loud clang from ahead of them cut him off. He jumped and she snapped back to attention. _The mole is still here. I don't have time for this._ While he turned away, she quietly slipped off and into the maintenance room several feet back. After a second she heard him grumble to himself from behind the closed door. _I'm sorry, Leon. You'll just have to fend for yourself._

It was easier to access the elevator shaft she'd been using for transport from here, so she made good time getting down to the lower level. She followed the same path as before and slipped into the sub-basement security room. When she lowered herself down from the vent, her feet met lumpy flesh instead of floor and she nearly tripped.

Righting herself, she took notice of several corpses who now inhabited the room—dead security officers, by the looks of them. _It would seem that the Monster likes to clean up after himself,_ she thought dryly. An image of the panic room was still displayed on the wall of monitors, now filled with a bloody scientist soup. Her lips curled up in disgust and she switched the display off. _Now to find myself a rat._ She reached for the closed security room door and paused at the sound of footsteps on the other side.

The handle jiggled.

Ada froze, ready to bolt, but the door stayed closed. _Locked._ Felix must not have wanted anyone to see his mess. She waited in tense silence.

The handle jiggled again and was shortly followed by the sound of retreating footsteps.

She let out a relieved breath and waited a few more minutes for good measure. It had almost certainly been Leon on the other side of that door. While she had every intention of sticking close to him, she would prefer if he remained unaware of it.

Ada slipped out of the security room and crept quietly around the corner. When she reached the large double doors that led to the rest of the facility, she pulled it open a crack and peaked inside. Leon walked ahead down the hallway, lights flickering on around him as he went. He reached a fork in the hallway and paused in front of a sign, then headed to the left. Of course he'd choose the conference rooms over the labs.

When he disappeared from her sight, she slipped through the crack and started down the hallway, muffling her footsteps. At the intersection she pressed herself to the corner again and peaked around the side. Leon slowly approached a large red mark on the floor, gun drawn. His head turned to the side, towards the first door in the hallway. Ada pulled her head back to stay out of his peripheral vision and waited, listening intently.

Moments later, the soft creak of hinges reached her ears. She waited for the click of the door closing behind him before emerging from her hiding place and walking in a hurried pace down the hallway to the right—labs 8-14.

Felix might have been a dangerous man, but rats were predictable creatures. _Especially_ highly trained rats. What was it he'd called his murder of Panacea's scientists—"efficient disposal"? Yes, she had an idea where the vermin would be hiding.

Scratching noises came from behind several of the doors she passed, but she ignored them. Even if she cared enough to interfere, this place was beyond saving. Finally she arrived at the farthest door in the hall. The label above read "Chemical Storage". She pulled the door open and smirked.

Just as she thought, there he was, leaning over several canisters of volatile gasses. His head snapped up as she entered.

"Well, well, well," she murmured, "What do we have here?"

His grey eyes regarded her coldly. "You do not belong here. Leave."

"But what you're doing looks so interesting," she argued with feigned enthusiasm. Ada leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms, making it very obvious that she had every intention of staying put.

Felix looked back down to the canisters, which he appeared to have connected with some type of tubing. Now he seemed to be rigging up a timer. "You do not belong here," he repeated, "Return to your mission."

She cocked her head to the side. _Bingo._ "And what would you know about that?"

"Enough." His answer was simple and quiet, but no less authoritative. He didn't even have the courtesy to look up.

She sighed irritably at his lack of creativity and stepped off the wall. "Do your job, but leave me alone. I don't need a babysitter."

He pressed a few buttons on his makeshift timer—it used to be an innocent kitchen timer, by the looks of it—and stood. His posture was _ungodly_ straight, as usual. "I have no intention of 'babysitting' you. But," Felix turned to meet her gaze, "I _will_ be keeping an eye on you, Miss Wong."

The familiar way he said her name sent a jolt of unease through her. He might as well have been a male clone of her handler from The Organization. _There's no doubt as to who sent him now,_ she thought. They were watching her, even now. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Feel free to try, if you truly think you can."

He brushed by her, ignoring her response entirely, and paused at the doorway. "I suggest you leave this area soon. It will become quite…" he hesitated, searching for the right word, "…flammable, shortly."

Felix started toward the doorway again and Ada felt a brief stab of panic. _I need to know why he's really here._ She took several quick steps forward and he halted at her approach. "Going so soon?"

He turned to look at her, but a growing impatience was beginning to show by the slightest tightening in his face. "In eight minutes, a flammable gas will permeate the ventilation ducts within this building. In ten minutes, the two gasses you see here will be allowed to react with each other, creating a sizable explosion. This, in turn, will ignite the gasses in the ducts. I intend to be out of this facility and a safe distance away when that happens."

The kitchen timer ticked steadily behind them.

 _Filthy, predictable rat._ If she hadn't sought him out herself, he probably would've let the place blow up with her still in it. "Oh really?" She purred, "But I was so enjoying our conversation."

Felix glanced behind her to the gas canisters and back. "We are somewhat short on time, Miss Wong."

Ada sent him a demure smile and sauntered over to the makeshift bomb. She trailed her finger down the rubber tubing and settled it on the timer. It continued to tick steadily. "What do you think might happen if this tubing were to spring a leak? This gas is poisonous when inhaled, if I recall correctly. Even in minute quantities. And it spreads _very_ quickly."

He stood still, unresponsive.

She tapped her nails against the tubing and cocked her head to the side. "How long can you hold your breath?"

Felix's eye twitched. "You would kill your subject and risk your own life. There would be no point."

"Wouldn't there be?" she asked, her fingers absently fiddling with a valve at the top of the canister. His eyes flickered down to them. "You see, I don't like surprises. They make me… _clumsy."_ She flicked her fingers against the tubing dangerously. "As I see it, you could either spare a few minutes to enlighten me, or count on my steady hands. If I were to be distracted by something, who knows what could happen. My hands might slip. And I can hold my breath a very long time."

"And how would you explain my death?"

She shrugged and smiled politely at him. "Accidents happen."

He looked back up to her face. The timer continued to tick behind them and he tapped his fingers against his thigh. "What do you want?"

Ada pinned him with her stare. "Tell me your assignment."

Felix blinked, hesitating for only the briefest of moments, then opened his mouth. "My instructions are to watch Agent Kennedy, as well as you. The Organization is interested in seeing your reaction to him. Agent Kennedy's Agency has asked Orion to take care of him, and they in turn ordered me to shadow him."

She eyed him cautiously, aware that she could only push her luck so far with this man. "Go find him and get out of here," she ordered.

His grey eyes sparked with a cold fire, but the timer kept ticking. His jaw tightened. "As you wish," he said eventually and turned on his heel. With his back to her he said, "But they will know."

She waited until he was through the door to back away from the canister, then hovered at the threshold and listened to his unearthly quiet footsteps recede. Cracking the door slightly, she watched him pause at the intersection and pull out a small electronic device. He looked at it for a moment, then turned to the left—back toward the exit.

Curious, she pulled out her PDA and performed a quick scan of area. Sure enough, there was a signal coming from the direction of the exit. _Felix must have placed a bug on Leon._

"Interesting," she murmured and made a note of the frequency. This could be handy for future use…

When Felix disappeared around the corner, she silently crept out and made her way along the hallway. There was a slight noise as the doors leading to the main sub-basement desk opened. She peaked around the corner just in time to catch sight of them closing.

Ada rushed forward. Pausing just behind the doors, she pressed her ear to the metal and listened.

"…the hell have you been?" Leon was saying. She counted the seconds as they passed, acutely aware of the timer ticking back in the chemical room. At her estimate, they had between six and seven minutes until this place blew, but Leon and Felix were blocking her exit.

"I've been looking for you," Felix lied in return, "I stepped out of the room upstairs to investigate a noise. When I went back into the room I'd left you in, you were gone. I have been searching for you ever since." Even through the door, Ada caught the impatience in Felix's voice. The clock was ticking for all of them, even if one of them didn't know it.

Leon didn't sound convinced. "Right."

"I think we should get moving, though, Agent Kennedy," Felix pressed on. As much as she hated the rat, she had to agree with him right now. "In my experience, these facilities tend to be very unstable when there is power failure. The chemicals these research facilities deal with are often highly flammable."

"A little sketchy power doesn't mean the place is going to explode," Leon argued, "Besides, don't you want to look around?"

There was a short pause. "I trust your reporting, and there are protocols for facilities that research biohazards of a level 4 standing. I've already called for back up to help survey the area. We are not properly equipped to deal with potential survivors or possibly infected individuals." _He's less persuasive than usual,_ she noted, _he must be getting nervous._

"Do you know what they were testing on?"

"No, but a level 4 biohazard is used only with extremely dangerous pathogens. That should be cause enough for us to leave and wait for proper back up."

Another slight pause. Leon sounded uneasy when he spoke again. "Okay, you're right…we'll go."

Ada breathed a sigh of relief, and then Leon spoke again. "Although it may take us some time to get out of here…this place is kind of a maze." _Go!_ she urged in her mind. How much time did they have now? Five minutes? Four?

"I think I remember the way," Felix said, and she would've found this funny if she wasn't in danger of blowing up soon.

At the sound of the stairwell door closing Ada plunged into the main room. She spared a fleeting glance at the stairs and elevators before disregarding them; she couldn't leave out the same way as Leon and Felix. Once again they were barring her way.

Ada turned on her heel and headed into the surveillance room. Distantly she noted that the monitor she'd turned off earlier was on again—Leon must've seen the panic room, but there was no time to think about that now. She headed straight towards the vent she'd come in through, but hesitated. By now the ventilation ducts would be filling with flammable gasses. Her nose caught the sharp twang of methane gas before she'd even approached the duct. There would be no breathable air inside, but it was the only way out.

She held her breath and slipped into the vent.

Even without breathing, she could smell the fumes. She shuffled faster through the narrow hole and finally slipped out the other side. Three floors above her the rooftop hatch sat open. Mildly dizzy from the fumes, she fired her grapple gun at the corner and pulled the trigger. A second later she was soaring through the air, vertigo chasing her all the way up.

She flipped out the top and landed, stumbling a little, onto the rooftop. A breath of fresh air steadied the world around her, but she didn't have time to rest. _It's going to blow any second now._

Ada took off at a hard sprint towards the edge and leapt off the side, shooting her grapple gun at the same time. It hooked to the corner of the building and slowed her fall. Her toes met the ground and she was off again. She dashed between some bushes and hopped over a fence.

The force of the explosion caught her in midair, throwing her forward with tremendous force. Instinctually she tucked in her arms as she fell, hitting the ground hard and rolling to the side.

Her ears were ringing and her face was hot, maybe even a little burned. She blinked open her eyes and was momentarily blinded by the burning building in front of her. The entire left side of her body ached where she had hit the ground. She grimaced. _Too close._ Ignoring the pain, she pushed herself to her feet.

Her wounds were superficial, but painkillers would make life much more palatable. That, and a small dose of stimulant she had stored back in her hideout would allow her to heal faster. It worked wonders on the short term—cuts and scrapes healed in half the time, and fatigue became a thing of the past—but on the long term, it was dangerous, addictive, and deadly.

She limped back to her car, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. Once there she pulled out a first aid kit and started patching herself up. Her arms were bruised and bleeding and a nasty cut on her ankle almost warranted stitches. Seeing a doctor would prove complicated and a waste of time when the wound would heal on its own with a little pressure and gauze. Scars weren't something she worried about anymore. Wesker had used her as a personal guinea pig several times when she worked for him, and thanks to his obsession with control, she never scarred anymore.

Her wounds would heal faster after she got back to the hideout and dosed herself, but there was something else she needed to do first. Indignant anger burned within her chest, made stronger by the pain she was currently in. _They sabotaged my mission. They sent Felix to interfere._ There was no way they could've thought she wouldn't find out—Orion might've been that foolish, but not The Organization. They would've known, and must've predicted her reaction to it. _They're manipulating me. They want me emotional._ They were playing with her, and she _hated_ being someone else's play thing.

She jabbed a thumb against the pendant on her wrist and waited. And waited.

And waited.

The Organization wasn't answering. For the first time in a very long time, she was completely alone.


	6. Off the Record

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : I'm alive! …and trying to be better about posting.

Disclaimer: I do not own or make money off of Resident Evil.

 **Chapter 6:**

 **Off the Record**

This had never happened before. She took her thumb off the pendant and sent a cautious glance around. _Have they turned on me?_ It seemed unlikely—they'd gotten too invested in her by now to back out. Years of work had gone into gaining their trust.

Still, it wasn't an impossibility. Without further information it would be impossible to know. Maybe Orion was jamming the outgoing signal; a betrayal from their side would make more sense. They'd always been a bit trigger happy.

Whatever had happened, she didn't know what was going on. And that was a problem. _I could be compromised. Anyone could be watching me right now._ Her eyes darted about the empty lot, lingering on the shadows between buildings and behind dark windows. The engine purred to life and she sped out onto the road.

If she was lucky, Leon and Felix would still be back at the burning remains of Panacea. She needed to get back, but it wouldn't do to have Leon catch sight of her in his rearview mirror. Her foot pressed harder on the gas pedal—she couldn't be caught following him if she was in front of him.

The trees moved past in a blur as the dial on the speedometer crept up, moving far beyond the legal limit. There were several rules she followed in situations like this.

 _Rule 1: When you don't know who to trust, trust no one_.

Phone number two buzzed from inside her bra. _Orion calling to check up on me? What interesting timing they have._ She steered the wheel with one hand and answered the phone in the other. "Yes?"

"What is your status?"

 _How much do they know?_ She wondered. "Single," she replied, intentionally misinterpreting them, "But my last boyfriend was in a tragic accident, and I'm not sure I'm ready for anything serious yet."

"What is your _mission_ status?" The deep, undulating voice clarified with little humor. "What is the situation with Agent Kennedy?"

 _Why so interested all of the sudden?_ Her bruised body ached and her eyes narrowed. _Worried I might've blown up?_ "Well," she began in a light, airy voice, "He seems to be doing fine. However, he has a new friend…I believe his name was Felix? You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

There was a strained pause on the other end. It told her all she needed to know—Felix hadn't been lying. They had been expecting Panacea to blow up, destroying all the evidence. They'd sent someone _else_ to do the dirty work, and they hadn't bothered to tell her. _Those fools could have killed me._ Vindictive anger burned through her veins

"The assignments of our other operatives are not your concern."

"Really?" Ada asked, feigning genuine curiosity, "Because I was under the impression that interference with my own assignment _was_ my concern."

"We shall remove the second observation order when you provide sufficient evidence that the agent can be turned. Until then, the agent is a liability and must be kept under surveillance at all times."

 _And I'm not doing a good enough job watching him myself?_ The speedometer dial crept dangerously higher as her foot pressed harder on the gas."That's funny. I was under the impression that _my_ mission was surveillance."

"We have decided that further attention is necessary with this subject."

She let out an irritated sigh."Have my orders changed?"

"No. Continue as originally directed. Monitor the agent, and prepare a report of all the information you've gathered before the end of the week."

 _A deadline?_ She hesitated briefly. It seemed…odd, to suddenly tie her to a specific timeframe. When she had information, she sent it. They already had all the evidence she'd gathered, including Isaac's jump drive. There was no reason to waste breath on pointless redundancy. Still, she didn't have the luxury to argue with them. Disobeying them could be seen as a betrayal to The Organization. Even with matters as they were, she couldn't take the risk.

Ada gave a curt nod. "Understood."

The line cut off and she put the phone back into her bra, feeling vaguely unsettled. _Something's off._ Frustrated, she steered the car with one hand and pressed her thumb to the bracelet again.

Still nothing.

She was just outside of town when phone number one buzzed. _The Liberati are calling now?_ It couldn't have been a coincidence. She pulled out the phone and pressed it to her ear. "Ye—"

"We need to talk." The young voice cracked on the final word, sounding more like a teenage boy addressing his first girlfriend. _Sounds like he's trying to ask me out._ She cracked a smile at the thought.

"What seems to be the problem?" she purred back to him.

"Orion knows you're working for us."

Her smile fell and she let her foot up off the gas. "I'm sorry, but what?"

"Orion knows you're working for us," the youth repeated in a nervous tenor. "We don't know how it happened, but they know."

The car coasted down to reasonable speeds as this information sank in. Orion knew she was double crossing them, but they'd pretended not to. They didn't want her to know that they knew. Why? She could think of only one answer. _They know I'm a traitor. I'm a liability, so now they have to dispose of me. And that task will be much easier if I don't know they're planning on doing it…_ How on earth could The Liberati have let them find out? And how could they "not know how it happened"?

 _What kind of respectable spy agency_ are _they?_ Her irritation spiked. _Of all of the incompetent, useless…_ Ada cut off the thought before it caused her to lose her temper. "Is your network secure?"

"Yes," he assured.

"Then Orion must have a spy among you."

"No," the voice argued, "They've all sworn loyalty."

She rolled her eyes. They must've skipped a few too many lectures of _Espionage 101._ "Well, it's one or the other," she snapped, "Figure it out."

"It doesn't matter now. You could be in danger."

Her patience thinned. _It doesn't_ _ **matter**_ _?_ "If you don't find the leak, then I'll _stay_ in danger. Find it and cut it off before it causes more problems." The wound on her ankle throbbed painfully. She let out a slow, controlled breath to calm herself. _I didn't sign on to play nursemaid._

The representative seemed reluctant to let it go. "But if Orion comes after you—"

"I can take care of myself," she interrupted.

"We can send someone to help you."

 _Oh yes, I'd love to have someone spying over my shoulder and leaking my secrets into your unsecure agency._ She restrained the urge to roll her eyes and composed herself."If there's a leak in your system," she explained slowly, "then you're more likely to endanger me than help me."

"But Orion—"

"Don't worry," she purred suddenly, "I know how to handle men when they get angry."

"I-if you insist," the boy stammered. Her mental image of him seemed to be getting progressively younger. "Have you made any progress on those blood samples?"

"Perhaps I should tell you about that _after_ you've secured your system," she suggested, keeping her voice convincingly smooth.

"Ah…" the voice started uncomfortably, "I guess that's a good idea. We'll…we'll stay in contact with you. Stay safe."

"Of course." She agreed in a comforting tone, then ended the call and slipped the phone back onto her thigh.

The car had slowed to a stop on the empty road sometime during the conversation. She took a few moments to survey her current situation. _Orion knows I was working for The Liberati, and has likely placed an order to terminate me as soon as possible. The Liberati are incompetent buffoons. The Organization isn't responding. I'm noticeably wounded, and my hideout is likely compromised._

She took a breath, then let it out.

 _Rule 2: Stay out of sight._

She pulled phone number two from her bra and got out of her car. Blood from the cut on her ankle had begun to seep into her shoe. It made the fabric stick and squish against her heel with every step she took. The shoes were unsalvageable; she'd have to find new ones soon. _Dammit, I liked these ones._ Shaking off her irritation, she placed the phone in front of her driver's side tire and slipped back into the car. There was an audible crunch of plastic as she drove forward again.

 _Let's see them track me now._

She pulled into a parking garage on the edge of town and ditched the car on the bottom floor. There were only a few people in building, but she tried to be careful nonetheless and kept her head down. Too many eyes seemed drawn to the scratches on her bare arms and the blood on her gown. _I'm too conspicuous like this,_ she thought and searched frantically around herself for a disguise. The covered garage provided shelter from the prying eyes above—the satellite—but to anyone else, she was exposed. And she couldn't stay here forever.

Ada weaved between cars, glancing through their windows as she went. Towards the back she spotted a minivan with several large plastic bags siting in back. A swath of black fabric peaked out. _A shopping trip, perhaps?_

Glancing around herself nonchalantly, she tried the handle. _Locked. Of course._ With another check to avoid prying eyes, she pulled out her PDA and started a program on several more seconds of fiddling, she heard a click as the PDA's signal reached the vehicle.

"It was a wonderful day when electronic locks became commonplace," she murmured with a smile.

With the car now unlocked, she pulled the door open and tried her luck. In the first bag she found a long, black woolen jacket that wasn't exactly her size, but had ties at the waist. It would do. The second bag held a mass of spikey high heels which, while not entirely in bad taste, were all much too large. She snagged a red scarf out of the third bag, and left the rest untouched. It would be all she needed.

There was a science to deception and remaining unseen. In this case, it was all about exploiting the public's never ceasing desire to be socially acceptable. Foreigners tended to make the general public uncomfortable; people didn't like to look at them for fear of being labeled as politically incorrect. In essence, she could disguise herself as a foreigner and blend in by standing out. It was a classic trick, and one of her finest talents—misdirection at its best.

Stepping out of the vehicle, she shrugged the jacket on and wrapped the scarf around her head like a burka. In the back of her mind she freshened up her Arabic. She stuck to the shadows until she neared the garage edge, then set out with a large group heading into the city.

 _I need to get back to my hideout,_ she thought, having difficulty keeping the limp out of her stride. That stimulant would be more valuable than ever if Orion was really out for her—not only would she have to be hyper-vigilant for the next few days, but she needed to keep a close eye on Leon. If something happened to him against The Organization's wishes, and they believed her to be disobedient… _that_ would be a death wish.

She spotted the first one just as she entered the heart of the city—a short man with close cropped hair and thick shoulders. The slight bulges of hidden firearms under his jacket gave him away as he scanned the crowd with alert eyes. _His posture's too straight,_ she noted. _What poor technique. He might as well have a sign on his forehead._ Whoever they were, they had no talent for blending in. _Must be one of Orion's goons._ She weaved her way through the crowd, staying out of his direct line of sight as she passed him.

 _They've moved fast,_ she acknowledged once she was finally out of sight of the first goon, _I'll give them that._ But they were still the same "act first, think later" company she knew them to be, and she could outsmart them.

Another goon waited at the end of the next block, trying to casually lean up against a storefront and failing miserably. He looked uncomfortable, and he probably was: the butt of the gun poking out beneath his jacket could hardly feel pleasant jabbing into his hip like that.

A bus stopped a few feet ahead of her, and she stepped on. The goon watched the streets intently, completely missing her as she passed by. After several blocks of diesel fumes and crying babies, she exited the bus. As it sped away, she spotted the top of Leon's building. _Almost there._

A second later she also spotted the hulking behemoth lurking across the street. The man—bald and nearly seven feet—saw her at the same moment. She controlled her expression, taking little interest in him and looking around herself instead, trying to seem lost. A crowded burger joint down the street caught her eye and she marched towards it, like it'd been her purpose all along. Out of the corner of her eye, the bald man followed.

 _Dammit._ Ada ducked into the restaurant and seated herself at a corner table in the back. The goon hovered in the entryway as her waiter arrived. His head dipped down subtly and he whispered something into his shoulder. _He thinks he's got me. He should think again._ She intentionally squinted into her menu, pretending to struggle in reading the items. The waiter tapped his pen impatiently as she began to order a salad in broken English.

The large goon seemed to grow impatient as well, lingering awkwardly in the doorway and declining the server's offers to seat him. He was growing less sure of his decision; her act was working.

Her salad arrived and she examined it skeptically. Honestly, the waiter _had_ probably spit in it—his sideways sneer would lead her to believe that he wasn't too friendly to foreigners from the middle east—but she had other motives for intently staring down at the wilting lettuce on her plate. She used her plate to hide her PDA and checked Leon's location. It showed as a little blue dot on his office building, which had her breathing a sigh of relief.

 _He's not back home, then. I still have time._

After pretending to pick about the pathetic excuse of a salad for ten minutes, the large goon finally left. With a sense of triumph, she paid for the meal—intentionally struggling with the dollar bills, both to solidify her disguise and to see the waiter squirm—and headed toward Leon's apartment.

Her hideout, as well as a much needed dose of stimulant, sat across the street in the abandoned office buildings. She eyed it warily from a nearby ally. Surely someone was watching it, but if they were, then they were being far more careful than they had been on the street.

As the shadows of the day grew longer, she crept behind the building and stole a glance around the corner. And there he was—the bald behemoth from the street. _So I didn't lose him after all._ He was scanning the street in the other direction, as well as occasionally sparing a cautious look upwards. _He thinks I might come from above. At least they've been doing their homework._ She pressed herself back against the wall and started formulating a plan. _I need to take him out quickly, quietly, and preferably without much physical effort._ Her ankle sent out a painful twinge. She took a breath, closed her eyes, and ducked around the corner.

Ada pulled out her grapple gun and fired a quick shot to his feet. He let out a startled yelp when the line retracted and pulled his legs out from under him. The mountain of a man fell, hitting the ground hard and wriggling like an enormous upturned turtle. He skidded down the alley, arms flailing helplessly, until he came to a stop at her feet.

She pressed the spike of her good heel against his neck.

His dark eyes widened as he choked. "Please!" He wheezed out. "I'm not—" he coughed, "—not like them!"

"Really?" Ada asked, unconvinced, "Then you weren't sent here to kill me?"

He struggled to speak as his face turned blue. He'd suffocate slowly, and it wouldn't be pleasant. His eyes were panicked and desperate, just like all of them were when it came down to this. It was nothing new, but something made her pause…

She let up the pressure, but kept her heel in place. _Alright, I'll humor him._ "What makes you so different?"

"I hate them!" he half gasped, half coughed, "I never wanted to do this! They just wanted me because I'm big and, and strong, and so they blackmailed me!"

 _Possible, but not likely._ She hummed slightly, letting him wait as she thought.

He squirmed under her shoe and tried to raise his hands. She immediately replaced her grapple gun with her pistol. "Hands stay at your sides," she ordered.

"Please," he begged, "I don't want to die! I'll…I'll do whatever you want!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

The large man nodded frantically. "What do you want? Money? You can have everything I have. And more. I'll find more."

It was so hard not to play when they were begging at her feet. She crossed her free hand over her chest and cocked her head to the side. "What's your name?"

"Vince," he answered immediately, "Vince Eugene Montgomery." His eyes shone with a desperate hope.

"Well Vince, I'm afraid buying me isn't going to work. I'm just not that kind of girl."

Vince started to hyperventilate, his cheeks puffing out as his words came. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll, I'll be your slave! Tell me to lick your shoes and kiss the ground you walk on, and I'll do it! Just please don't kill me!"

She clucked her tongue in disapproval and shook her head. "Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's rude to bribe people?"

He shook his head. "No, not a bribe! It's a…a gift! Yeah! If you let me go, I won't tell them I met you here, I promise! I'll lie!"

"Now that would be silly. If you're here, they obviously know _I'm_ here. You know they'd just kill you anyway if you lie to them, right?"

Vince started to cry big fat tears that rolled down his cheeks. "Oh please! Please, I don't wanna die! There's so much I haven't—" he hiccupped, "—haven't done! Did, did, d-did you know I h-haven't even been in love? Not once. They make me kill people and I haven't even been in love before. What kind of life is that? Please, oh please, please, please, please…" he trailed off into incoherence.

She kept her gun trained on him, but lifted her foot from his throat. He stared up at her, terrified. "I'll tell you what, Vince. I'll let you live, for now."

"Oh, _thank you."_ He scrambled up to his knees. "I'll do better, I will, I promise! I'll leave these people and never come back, and I'll start doing good stuff like walking little old ladies across the street, and—"

"Wait," she ordered and he froze. "You have to do something for me first."

He blinked up at her with wide, watery eyes. "Anything."

Her face turned stern. "Return to your masters. Tell them you met me, and tell them to leave me alone. Do you understand?"

He nodded, still on his knees.

"Good." She nudged him with her toe. "Get going, Vince. You have somewhere to be."

Vince scrambled to his feet and took off in an ungainly run in the opposite direction. She watched as he went. _Even pawns can be useful, if used properly…_ Her warning wouldn't keep them away. Instead, it would likely bring them to her faster. _Good. Then I won't have to wait as long._ She watched him disappear around the corner before grappling up to the roof and making her way down to her hideout.

Nothing had tripped her motion sensors yet, which meant no one was waiting for her inside. She wasted no time in grabbing the syringe from her duffel bag and dosing herself. The effect was almost instantaneous. Within moments she felt a cold, jittery energy spread through her limbs. It became nearly impossible to stand still. Her breathing grew fast and shallow and she closed her eyes, concentrating. _Deep breaths._

If she expended too much energy now, her wounds wouldn't begin to heal. Sleep would be best, but was impossible until the drug wore off. It was also suicidal with Orion after her. She couldn't stay here, either. After cutting a small hole in the lining next to her sleeve and storing the syringe, she left her hideout and took shelter in a clock tower several houses down from Leon's apartment. It was just close enough to provide an adequate view of the area, and aside from a tour group that liked to frequent the historic tower in the afternoons, it was largely absent of people.

Hidden behind the opaque glass pane of the clock face, she watched her hideout and Leon's apartment through a small, shuttered window. The tracker Felix had planted on Leon had him safely at home in his apartment. According to her sensors, no one had entered his house but Leon himself.

 _Still safe, but for how long?_

This trouble with Orion could potentially put him in the line of fire. She'd have to be careful in how she dealt with them. Her eyes lingered on the shadows below, searching for movement. Finding none, she paced the small room for an hour, waiting for the worst of the energy rush to subside. The pent up energy in her body seeped into her mind, leaving her thoughts erratic and harder to control. She leaned against the window, forcing herself to remain vigilant.

Still her disobedient mind strayed, meandering onto pointless topics that didn't help her current situation in the slightest.

 _I wonder if he's in bed._

She blinked and tried to focus on the ground below. Had something just moved across the street? _Yes, but it was just his neighbor returning home._ She sighed and looked down to check the progress of the cut healing on her ankle. It was subtle, like watching bamboo grow. In a few hours it'd be red, hot, and itching like mad. It was a small price to pay for drastically sped up healing. Her eyes settled back on Leon's apartment and she drummed her fingers against the window frame.

She wondered how they might have met if they'd both been normal.

Her mouth quirked up into an amused smirk. That was a laughable thought. Still, some part of her mind latched onto it. It was such a ludicrous idea that she couldn't put it away. It was impossible to picture herself in any sort of normal life. Her whole existence was centered on deceit. Honest work would never have suited her. _Maybe a lawyer,_ she mentally joked.

Leon was easier—he'd already been a police officer. Or…a mechanic, maybe. His intelligence would be sorely wasted on such a simple occupation, but at least he wouldn't be dodging bullets. _The mechanic and the lawyer…_ She smiled. _Hmm…_ Perhaps Leon would have legal trouble with one of his customers. Trouble would find him no matter what he did in life, she was certain of that. He'd seek out her help, and she'd win his case for him but manage to screw him over in the process. Then he would be forced to come back so that she could play with him again…

Ada shook her head, trying to clear it. _That life doesn't exist. Stop thinking about it._ Her ankle began to burn and she looked down at it, noticing the inflamed skin surrounding the wound. So began the less pleasant part of healing…

She looked back up to Leon's apartment and her old hideout, trying to focus again. It was going to be a long night.


	7. The Source

**A/N:**

 **Avogadro602** : Annnd I'm back! Like I said, I've been trying to be better about updating. This chapter is one I've had planned for a loooong time, so hopefully it goes over well. Lots of fun action! Thanks to everyone who's still following and reviewing! You are wonderful, and I am very grateful to you for hanging in there.

Disclaimer: Capcom owns Resident Evil. Not me.

 **Chapter 7:**

 **The Source**

It was funny, how a new pair of shoes always made her day. _That and a long, relaxing shower…_ An indulgent smile spread over her lips. She flexed her toes, stretching the material as she watched Leon finish up his coffee break. She'd followed him closely as he went to work, then left as soon as he was safely inside to find a new outfit. The best she could get was business casual—a black button up shirt with a pencil skirt and red, studded belt. To cheer herself up, she'd backtracked to Leon's house and used his bathroom to take a shower.

There was something intensely satisfying—almost sensual—about feeling _his_ hot water run down her skin. She ran it until a thick steam filled the air and fog blurred the image of her naked body in his mirror. Her presence would linger here as an invisible invader on his territory.

The thought gave her butterflies. _He'll never know…_ Her eyes greedily followed him back into the building, savoring his ignorance. When she was sure he was settled for the day, she headed back toward her new hideout. A sparse crowd populated the sidewalks—not enough to hide in, unfortunately—so she kept her path to alleys and dark corners.

A homeless man leered at her from behind a building as she passed by. He grunted at her and she ignored him until a dirty, gnarled hand reached out to squeeze the curve of her hip. She swatted the hand away with a sharp glare. "Hands off."

He sent her a toothless grin in response.

She ignored him and kept walking. The streets were more crowded in this part of the city, so she chanced taking one of the main roads. It was faster, but after a few blocks she spotted more of Orion's goons and had to duck back into an alley. In frustration she checked the motion sensors from her old hideout, but found nothing. _Still no sign that anyone's entered… What's taking them so long?_ Several times during the night she'd spotted suspicious men snooping around it, but they never entered.

 _They know I'm not staying in there anymore, but they don't know where I am._ If she wasn't careful enough on the streets, they could tail her back to the clock tower and she'd have to find yet _another_ hideout. But traveling this way was tedious and time consuming. By the time she got back, Leon would almost be done with work and she'd just have to turn around.

She checked Leon's location again. He was still at the office. In fact, he was in the exact same place he'd been for the past two hours. _Hard at work, or is the tracker malfunctioning?_ She hacked into their computers and looked up his recent documents. What she found was a half written report on his work at Panacea. She nodded, briefly admiring his attention to detail, and closed the program. _Hard at work it is, then._

Back at her hideout, she checked the cut on her ankle. _Nearly healed,_ she noted with approval. If she could get by without taking another dose of stimulant, she would. Taking too much too soon was dangerous.

She spent the next hour watching her hideout for movement. The suspicious men returned, but kept moving instead of hovering around her old hideout. Her eyes narrowed as two of them approached the clock tower. _Do they know I'm here?_ Silently she shook her head. _No, that shouldn't be possible._ Despite her disbelief, the men kept coming. One guarded the entrance below while the other slipped out of her view, too close to the building to be seen. She listened closely.

Far below, a door creaked open.

 _Dammit,_ Ada internally cursed. She shot a grapple at the roof and jumped out the back window.

The sun was beginning to set. She hit the ground running, sticking to the growing shadows as she made her way. Hiding in a fire escape a few buildings down the street, she watched them ascend the tower. _How did they know I was there? When did they see me?_ She went over her path from Leon's office to her new hideout in her mind. Aside from her encounter with that hobo, she had run into no one. No one had seen her return. No one should know about this new hideout.

The men, upon finding nothing in the clock tower, climbed down and regrouped at the bottom. They spoke briefly, and then pointed—to her astonishment—in _her direction._ She ducked down as they approached her alley, hiding herself from view. _They must have seen me somehow when I left the tower…_ The men approached slowly, looking around themselves with suspicious eyes. She watched them walk underneath her through the black metal grating of the fire escape. They walked by right by, as they should have, then stopped _._ One of the men looked down at a device on his wrist, then signaled to his partner. They started walking back in her eyes widened. _No…it's not possible…_

One of the men looked up. "There! I see her!"

 _They have a tracker on me._ Ada grappled to the next rooftop and ran. She heard their voices raise as she left their sight and their footsteps follow.

"Don't lose her!" One of them shouted.

Ada leapt the gap between buildings and kept running. "Shit, she's fast!" the other man shouted from below.

 _Even if I lose them, they'll be able to find me as long as I have this tracker. I need to buy some time so that I can find it and get rid of it._ She kicked open a rooftop door on the next building and found herself in someone's attic. Below her, a door slammed open and a woman screamed. Perching on one of the support beams, Ada whipped out her PDA and started a scan of all the signals in the area. Loud footsteps thudded up the stairs. A light on her PDA blinked as it continued to scan. _Just a few more seconds…_ Another door slammed open, this time much closer. Her PDA started a quiet beeping—there was definitely a signal coming from her, but she had no time to find it. She put it away as one of the men shoved open the hatch to the attic. "I've got her!" he shouted as he pushed his shoulders through.

Ada sent him a coy smile as he scrambled up into the attic. He stood and raised his gun, breathing hard. _Just a few more steps…_ "About time, bitch," he complained and took a step toward her. "One move and you're—"

There was a loud crack as the man crashed down to the floor below. The flimsy insulation and ceiling tiles were never meant to support a full grown man's weight, which was why she'd stayed on the support beam.

"I'm sorry," she murmured with a smile as she slipped back out to the roof, "I didn't quite catch that…"

Once back outside, she wasted no time in jumping off the roof. She darted out to the street and tore down it in an all-out sprint. The second man followed her closely, shoving people out of his way while she passed by largely unnoticed. She made a sharp turn at the end of the street and headed down a set of stairs that led to the subway. _The signal will be weaker down here._

She vaulted over the railing and onto the platform. A crowd of impatient commuters waited nearby. She walked into them, keeping her head down and flipping the collar of her jacket up to cover her red scarf. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the goon arrive and look around. His eyes scanned the room, passing over her. The train doors opened and she stepped on. He caught sight of her at that moment and started shoving people aside, forcing his way in. She kept walking until she reached the second set of train doors, stepped off, and turned around. The doors closed, trapping her pursuer inside as the train started moving.

Ada waved at him as they sped away. The man finally caught sight of her through the window, and let out a string of curses so explicit that they drew startled looks from the passengers around him. She watched them leave, then turned on her heel and headed towards a sanctuary around the corner—a single person, unisex bathroom.

 _Time to find this tracker and destroy it._

With the door locked behind her, Ada took out her PDA and restarted the scan. It started beeping softly as she scanned it over herself. Around her waist, the beeping grew faster.

She took off her jacket and ran the PDA over it. The beeping became slower. Her brow furrowed. _My dress, then?_

It didn't make any sense—she would've noticed someone slipping something past her jacket and onto her dress—but she took it off anyway. _Unless they bugged every dress in the area, or they've smartened up somehow._ She scanned the dress, and the beeping grew slower again. _Then where…?_

A sinking feeling started in her gut. _This can't be good._

Clad in only the lacey bra and panties she'd acquired earlier today, she ran the scanner over herself starting at the shoulders.

 _Beep…..beep…..beep….…_

It passed her sternum…

 _Beep…Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep..._

Her navel…

 _Beep._ _Beep._ _Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

Her thigh…

 _Beep…Beep...Beep..._

Ada's eyes narrowed. She put down the scanner and examined the spot at her waist where the signal was strongest. There was a faint red dot just below her hip bone—the type of mark left by a needle. Though expensive, tracking devices existed that could be injected into an individual rather than placed on their clothing or personal items. She ran her finger across it and felt no pain. _A needle coated with anesthetic…clever bastards._

It had to have been the lecherous hobo from the alley. His grope must've been a cover to get close enough to inject a tracker into her. She ran a finger over the spot again and found a small lump just beneath her skin, only slightly thicker than her thumb nail. Ada sighed irritably and pulled out her knife. _What an inconvenience._

Now that it was inside, there was only one way to get it out. She pressed the blade to her skin and felt a slight sting at the first cut. A crimson dot appeared at the knife point and ran a track down her leg.

Someone pounded on the door.

Ada's head snapped up and she raised her gun in her free hand. "Occupied."

Luckily for them, the knocker did not return. She looked back down to the knife. Ignoring the sharp burn, she fished into the small cut with one slender finger. The blood made it slippery, and the elusive metal chip evaded her grasp several times before she finally pulled it out.

It stuck to her finger, wet and coated in the red of her blood. She glared at it for a moment before flicking it into the toilet and flushing. _Let's see them follow that for a while._

The blood had dripped onto the floor and the sink. She turned on the faucet and left a red smear on the handle. _Such a mess,_ she thought in disgust. It cleaned up easily enough, but she had bigger problems.

One look at her bloodied hip had her letting loose another irritated sigh. _I suppose I have no choice now,_ she thought and pulled out the syringe of stimulant. Another dose would ensure that this little incident didn't result in infection, but much more and she'd risk an overdose.

She sucked in a deep breath as the effects hit her again. The world seemed to sharpen, the dirty cracks in the tiling becoming clearer than before. Her hip stopped hurting entirely and her thoughts screamed ahead at a pace she had difficulty controlling. An eager strength burned in her muscles and left her body tingling with anticipation. _I could tear down walls…_ She gave herself a shake and corrected her thoughts to a more rational course. Her mind was harder to control than before, but that was to be expected. The stimulant's effects would compound with each dose that was taken, at least until it left her system entirely—and that would take a week or more.

If Orion had finally smartened up, she'd need to find a more permanent solution to their pesky interference. She couldn't keep relying on chemical assistance; as it was she was already heading towards a crash when the effects wore off, if not bordering on overdose. It was time to lure them back on her terms, and set a trap so she could deal with them once and for all.

The trap was set in her old hideout. She'd brazenly returned to the building in midday, making no attempts to disguise herself. If Orion was watching from above, and they surely were, then they would come soon. They were eager—that tracker they'd planted on her earlier had been expensive—and they would almost certainly jump at the chance to strike her from their list. _Another loose end taken care of._

Now all she had to do was wait.

As midnight approached, she began to wonder how long it'd take them to get here. Either they were incredibly dense, or they were planning something. Both situations were somewhat annoying, but the latter was more worrying.

She pressed her thumb to the bracelet for what felt like the millionth time. As was becoming usual, there was no response. _I'll have to assume that the Organization doesn't consider taking out Orion's goons as a betrayal._ With a frustrated sigh she turned to look out the window towards Leon's apartment. He'd looked tired when he'd come home today. His tracker had him somewhere in his bedroom, likely asleep in bed. She looked longingly towards the dark window that led towards his bedroom. _I envy you._

A light came on behind the window. She sucked in a breath and pressed herself against the wall, peaking around the side. He probably wouldn't be able to see her, but the impulse to stay hidden was so ingrained that she didn't spare it a second thought.

Nothing happened for several minutes. Then a figure appeared—Leon, his face tired and pale. He opened the window and hung his head out, taking deep breaths of the cool night air. She could just make out a slight sheen on his forehead—sweat? He'd been in bed just a moment ago. _Having nightmares, Leon?_

He leaned against the frame and ran a hand through his hair. It was getting long; it always seemed to be in his eyes nowadays. His chest rose and fell slowly as he looked down at the street below. He sat like that for several minutes, with him watching the cars while she watched him. His eyelids began to droop. He leaned his head on his hands and mumbled something; she wished she knew what it was. Then he closed the window. Several minutes later the light went off.

She relaxed slightly and ignored the strange sense of loss that came with his absence. _Something's wearing on him._ Her best guess would be something to do with Panacea. He wasn't dumb; he'd probably figured something out by now, and that conscience of his wasn't likely to let him forget it. _I'll have to watch him closely to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid._

When morning came and Orion's goons had yet to show up, she reluctantly resigned herself to watching Leon from afar using his tracker. She didn't like it but her alternatives were limited.

Afternoon passed with still no sign from Orion's welcoming party. She watched, somewhat anxiously, as Leon's indicator flashed on the screen of her PDA. He'd be headed home any minute now. His indicator moved from the main building, to the elevator, to the garage…

Her motion sensors went off, making her PDA vibrate slightly in her palm. Ada's head snapped up, hearing footsteps above her for the first time. _Now?_ She glanced back down the Leon's indicator. As long as he was heading home right now as usual, then everything would be…

Leon's indicator flashed as it moved steadily in the _opposite_ direction of his home. _Dammit._

She switched to a different program on her PDA and remote accessed the cameras she'd stationed in the hallway. A grainy image flickered to life and showed her two men in black body armor descending from the rooftop. _Only two?_ She wondered, mildly offended. Really, they must have no faith in her abilities.

 _Get it done fast and then find out what trouble Leon is getting himself into._

Ada quietly sprinted over to the door and waited. There was a small ledge, if you could call it that, which ran around the doorframe. When she heard their footsteps just down the hall, she leapt up and pulled herself onto it. It was a delicate balancing act; the lip was barely an inch thick.

Perched above, she watched the first man enter the room with his gun raised. The second man followed shortly. When he was directly below her, she carefully pivoted and shifted her weight onto the palms of her hands. With great control she lowered herself down. When her thighs were on either side of his head, she snapped her legs closed and twisted.

There was a dull snapping sound as his neck broke.

The first man jerked around at the noise. Ada let go of the wall and the dead man at the same time, allowing his body to shield her as she fell. A spray of bullets flew at her but only hit dead flesh. Her knees bent as she hit the ground and she rolled to the side. The mercenary turned to follow her with his gun but she was faster, throwing a leg out to kick behind his knees. He fell onto his back and started to scramble while she pulled out her gun.

She stood and trained her gun on his head. He grabbed for his own firearm, but she kicked it away from him. She greeted him with a pinched smile. "Aw, you should've called. I would have cleaned up the place."

The man grunted and then cursed in French. Unlucky for him, she was more than familiar with a wide array of French expletives, and having her genitals talked about in such a way did not make her more sympathetic. He was wearing a helmet with a tinted visor, but she was almost certain he was glaring. "Crazy bitch. Just do it already."

She clucked her tongue. "Don't be so hasty. Why don't you tell me about the friends that sent you here first?"

"I'm not telling you shit."

Her aim shifted lower. "Not even if I shoot off your favorite toy?"

"You wouldn't," the man grunted, "You don't have the guts. Not your style, prissy pants."

She cocked her head to the side, then lowered her gun. "You're right. I don't want to make a mess." On that note, her heel slammed into his groin.

The man choked and coughed, getting spittle all over the floorboards. "Fuck you," he ground out after a moment.

"How about we get to know each other first," she taunted, hoping to get a rise out of him. "This doesn't have to be painful."

He took a couple of wild swings at her that she easily side stepped. "Not a chance in hell, you stuck up whore!"

She tapped her foot impatiently and sighed in irritation. This was taking too long; Leon could be halfway out of town by now. "Wrong answer," she snapped and executed him with a swift, well-aimed kick to the head.

She dragged the dead men to the bathroom and stored them in the bathtub. Eventually, Orion should be back for them later when they realized their men were missing. _I'll search them later,_ she promised herself and checked Leon's location again.

"Dammit," she cursed under her breath. He really _was_ halfway out of town. And to make matters worse, she didn't have a car. _I'll have to acquire a new one, and quickly._

By the time it took her to get one, she could tell where Leon was going. _Qwills._ This wasn't good. There was bound to be _something_ he could stumble upon there that he wasn't supposed to. She made an attempt to catch up to him by doing nearly double the speed limit. Just outside of the town, she pulled off into the trees and covered the car with branches.

Ada crept forward through a forest of blackened and charred trees, but found the area deserted. _Did he leave already?_ She pulled out her PDA to check, then heard the crunch of gravel as a car came down the road. She darted behind the nearest tree.

The car parked across the road somewhere ahead of her. She peaked around the side of the tree to catch sight of Leon getting out. _He should've been here already. He must've stopped somewhere…_

Leon took a few steps and stopped. His posture grew tense and he jerked his head around, looking in her direction. She pulled her head back and flattened herself to the tree. There was a long silence while she hoped he hadn't seen her.

When she heard his footsteps crunching against the dead leaves again, she let out a silent breath. _That's it, go on and do whatever it is you came her to do…_ She peaked around the side again to see Leon heading away from her, further into Qwills. While his back was turned she darted across the road and behind another tree, trying to stay close to him. He slowed near a ruined house, eyeing the burnt structure with sad eyes, before continuing on.

She followed.

As they went deeper into the forest, a flicker of recognition stirred in her. Not too long ago she'd come through here on a rainy night, searching for Isaac. Well, Isaac or his corpse. And here was the spot where that hillbilly had briefly seen her…

Leon kept going, and it wasn't until they got closer that she saw it. There was an open well, burned to a crisp but otherwise still standing. Leon stared at it for a moment, contemplating. She wished she could see his face. _What are you thinking? Why here?_

After a minute, he pulled something—a flashlight, she now saw—out of his jacket and looked in. Whatever was down there must've been interesting, because he stared at it intently for several seconds. He leaned dangerously forward, obviously engrossed, then stumbled back as part of the well collapsed.

Ada took the opportunity to switch trees and get a better view of his face. After steadying himself, Leon looked down the well again. He knelt down and briefly reared back to scrunch up his face like he'd smelled something unpleasant. His eyes suddenly widened and he slipped again as _something_ down there startled him. Ada almost thought she'd have to intervene, but he quickly regained his bearings and resumed studying the well with renewed intensity.

After a minute Leon leaned back and put his flashlight away. He sat there for a while, looking slightly dazed. Ada's curiosity spiked. _What did you see?_

Leon stared at the well. "Were you the source?" he whispered and Ada froze. _What?_ Leon continued, unaware of her confusion."Were you infected with… _whatever_ it was back at Panacea, and you brought it here in a drunken stupor?"

Her stomach churned anxiously in a prelude to a discovery that would bring only trouble. _Oh no. He's found something he shouldn't have…_

Leon stood, seeming unsteady on his feet, and made his way back to his car. Ada hung back and waited until she heard him leave before emerging and approaching the well herself. She switched on a light of her own and shone it down the well, searching for what had Leon had seen only moments before. It didn't take her long to find it.

She let out a long sigh. _Well Leon,_ she thought with bittersweet humor, _it looks like you finally found Isaac Redfern._


	8. Hunter and Hunted

**A/N:** Sorry about the delay, guys. Going to graduate school and working full time is hard. Thanks for hanging in here! There will be more to come!

Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil.

 **Chapter 8:**

 **Hunter and Hunted**

She followed him back to the city, keeping a safe distance on the road. What he would do with his new discovery she had no idea, but she didn't plan on missing it. _If he contacts someone, I need to know._ She'd likely have to silence whoever he contacted as well, which wasn't a task she was looking forward to.

She left to stash the car and caught up to him before he had a chance to do anything. His first stop was not the press or a high ranking government official, but a Panda Express a short drive from his house. After watching him stand in line for a full ten minutes, Ada grew convinced that he was not, in fact, trying to contact someone. He was just trying to get dinner.

 _Maybe he knows better than to jump down this rabbit hole._ Knowing Leon, that wasn't likely. Another thought struck her that sounded, unfortunately, much more probable: _He's probably waiting for proof._ She heaved a weary sigh, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by fatigue. _The stimulant must be wearing off…_ Well, that wasn't going to be making life any easier.

Leon looked like he might be getting his order soon, so Ada turned to go. The last thing she needed was for him to catch her snooping around, watching him buy dinner. _And there are two of Orion's goons back at my old hideout waiting for me to search them._ She headed back, trying to blend in with the crowd but feeling less concerned now that Orion's most recent goons had been dealt with.

Her head started to ache as she approached the old hideout, a sure sign that the stimulant really was wearing off. _Fantastic,_ she thought as she grappled up to the roof and made her way inside. Halfway down the stairs, her bracelet chimed.

Ada stopped and blinked down at it, startled. _I'd almost thought it stopped working…_ She shook her head and pressed her thumb to the pendant. Their logo illuminated her palm in the second that followed.

"Miss Wong. We apologize for the delay, but we ran into some technical difficulties on our end. We hope it didn't inconvenience you."

Ada started walking again, trying not to show her surprise and irritation. _I doubt I'll get any further explanation._ "How kind of you to worry. It's been…eventful, but I managed. Orion has discovered that I'm working with the Liberati. They must've had a leak—"

"Yes, we're aware of their incompetence," the woman remarked in an unusually cross voice, "As long as they are unaware of your association with us, it's only a minor setback. Have you had any other difficulties?"

"Actually, yes," Ada admitted, feeling her ire rise at the memory of Panacea's destruction, "It seems I'm not the only one assigned to agent Kennedy. I ran into one of your agents while monitoring Kennedy at Panacea. He calls himself Felix." She spat out the name as disgust leaked out into her voice. _As if they don't know already._

"Ah, yes," The woman agreed as if it'd simply slipped her mind, "We thought you might like the company."

"He interfered with my supervision of Kennedy, and nearly got me killed," Ada snapped back.

Her handler made a disappointed 'tsk' sound. "He nearly got you killed? Oh Miss Wong, we thought you could take care of yourself better than that."

Outraged, she had trouble restraining a glare at the glowing logo. She reached the main room of her hideout and busied herself with pushing the door closed while she reigned in her anger. Ada cleared her throat, trying to keep her composure. "Given the recent turn of events, have there been any changes in my orders? I assume you still want me to keep a watch on Kennedy, even if Orion has turned hostile."

"You assume correctly. The agent is still a matter of great interest. And we'd like you to pick up the pace with getting that blood sample. Otherwise, should you find it too difficult, we'll just have Felix handle it."

Her face contorted into a sneer against her will. "Why is _he_ involved? No one told me that there would be internal interference."

There was a short, but tense pause. "Miss Wong, that almost sounds like you're questioning our judgement. You remember the rules, don't you?"

Ada closed her eyes and nodded slightly, composing herself. If she strained hard enough, she could almost feel the leash around her neck. "Yes."

"Good. You know that we don't explain them twice. Our judgement is to have Felix watch over your operation, and you are not to question it. He can finish the job should you fail. You are not to hinder his observation in any way. Do you understand?"

She pressed her lips together and stared at the logo. "Yes, I understand."

"Please have a report prepared for us when we contact you again. And don't get too cozy with Agent Kennedy—remember, we know your history."

"I _understand,"_ she snapped, then watched the pendant go dark as they ended the call. The pain in her head intensified. The organization was tightening its hold on her. Long ago she'd seen their power and realized the foolishness of fighting them, but their desire for control was suffocating. The memory of their bargain, and their threat, hadn't faded.

" _Work with us, and we'll set you free. Work against us, and no corner of this earth will be safe for you."_

There was no room for error here. It was a game of wits that that they played at the highest of stakes. Winning meant walking away with their trust and the one thing only they could give her—freedom. Losing meant being thrown into the clutches of every enemy she'd made in the past fifteen years, and likely being subjected to a fate worse than death in the process. _I'm almost there. If this mission goes according to plan, then everything will fall into place. As long as there are no unexpected setbacks, then I should be—_

The groan of hinges interrupted her thoughts. Her head snapped up as the door to her hideout opened.

She ducked, rolled, and trained her gun on the intruder. Then her mind froze.

Leon was standing in her doorway looking immensely satisfied. The counter-attack measures she'd been racing through in the back of her mind came to a grinding halt. She blinked at him stupidly, feeling completely unprepared for the first time in years.

 _This was definitely not in the plan._

"Honey, I'm home," he greeted her with a boyish smirk, then stepped into the room and kicked the door shut behind him. A part of her mind grew anxious as he cut off one of the exits. The other part was racing frantically to figure out just _how the hell he got in here._

As her thoughts started to crank back up to speed, she immediately grew wary of the situation. Death and betrayal frequently followed surprise in her world. _Did The Organization somehow set this up? Did he follow me?_

"Leon?" she called out cautiously.

To her dismay, Leon started looking around her little hideout with interest. "I see dinner's not ready," he quipped.

She ignored his attempt at humor and kept her gun trained on him. _This shouldn't be possible. He shouldn't know where this hideout is. Did someone tip him off? Did Orion blow their cover and lead him to me? Did he see me? When could he have seen me?_

"Sorry," she began in a tense voice and stood slowly, "But I had to pick up the kids from school."

He started to frown at her and stepped a little closer. His eyes strayed down to her still raised gun and took on a hint of hurt. "Mind not pointing that thing at me?"

Her first impulse was to say that yes, she did mind, because he wasn't supposed to be here and having her gun out made her feel safer, but she rejected that immediately. After all, Leon couldn't start thinking that she didn't trust him. He'd take it personally, when in reality she didn't trust anyone. She couldn't afford to. Reluctantly, she lowered the firearm and slid it into its holster. _He doesn't seem hostile,_ she hesitantly admitted. _And that means the game is still on._

Ada shaped her face back into its normal mask and attempted to salvage the situation. _I need to distract him and leave as soon as possible._ She waited for him to speak first, hoping to use his words to her advantage.

The frown was still on Leon's face. "What are you doing here?" he asked, a healthy dose of suspicion coating his words.

"Nothing of importance," she lied and watched his eyes follow her gun as she put it away. She cursed herself for slipping up and letting him see her lack of trust. _He's too suspicious. This could be difficult._ "Now, did you need something?" she redirected the conversation toward him, and then added for extra effect, "Or were you just impatient to see me again?"

To her disappointment, he stayed focused. If anything, his eyes gained a determined gleam. "I want answers, and I get the feeling you might have the ones I'm looking for."

 _So he_ **did** _decide to contact someone about his discovery of Isaac's body,_ she thought in vague amusement, _it just happened to be me._ Oh well. It just cut out the middle man.

She took her time in answering, turning her back on him and walking over to the decrepit mattress that'd been here since she'd arrived. Folding her arms, she turned her upper body towards him and sent a coy smile in his direction. "Now why would I know anything?"

Leon's eyebrows sank downward into a resolute expression. He closed the distance between them in several confident strides. "Don't play dumb. You warned me before this whole mess started. You're _always_ a step ahead of me."

Ada let out a soft, dismissive chuckle and looked away before she let something slip. _You have no idea._

He regained her attention by grabbing her arm and leaned in close. There was a dark gleam in his blue eyes. "So I think it's about time you fill me in," he finally concluded.

Her lips spread out into a grin as she turned to face him fully. His tone might have held a threat, but he would never have followed through. And the fact that he had actually threatened her in the first place meant that he'd gotten too confident—this might be easier than she'd originally thought."I see you think quite highly of me," she taunted, then attempted to sit down.

As she'd expected, the grip on her arm was only for show and came off easily the moment she pulled away. She sat down and casually crossed her legs, then looked up at him. "Well then, ask away."

 _It will only be so long before he's back in my control. He'll let his guard down soon enough._

He seemed thrown off by her agreement, but returned to his former confidence fairly quickly. "What are you really doing here? Are you following me?"

She tilted her head up to stare innocently into his blue eyes. The color was striking, like ice in the arctic, but warmer _._ "Clearly, what I am doing here is talking to you, and I believe it was _you_ who followed _me."_

Those ice colored irises briefly skimmed the ceiling as an exasperated look crossed his face. "When I said I wanted answers," he began, cynicism beginning to creep into his tone, "I meant _real_ ones."

"If you want real answers, then ask real questions. You won't get anywhere asking silly questions like those all night." She placed her hands in her lap and attempted to look patient. _Believe me, I could do this all night. I won't have to, but I could._

Leon let out an audible noise of frustration and sent her another exasperated look. His eyes narrowed. "Ada, could you be straight with me for _once?"_

 _Lost your patience already? Well then. Our time might be coming to an end…_ Ada let out a long, weary sigh that she knew would get his attention and stood up. In her mind, she selectively tore down the barriers that held back nearly a week's worth of fatigue. The pain in her head intensified into a sharp throb at her temple and her muscles took on an unbearable heaviness from constant strain. Her body reacted—she felt herself wilt and reached up to gently cup her forehead. It almost overwhelmed her before she restrained it and focused her thoughts once more.

She watched as sympathy crept into Leon's features. _Perfect._

"Leon," she breathed his name on a sigh, "It's been a _very_ long day for me. Please, just give me a moment to freshen up and afterward I'll tell you everything I know. Please," she begged and sent an obvious, longing look towards the bathroom, "I haven't slept in a very long time, and I would very much like to splash my face with some cold water. Please, it'll just be a moment."

He was quiet for a few moments, but his kind, gullible heart was clearly winning—that wonderfully useful weakness. Without saying a word, he nodded and gestured for her to pass. He stayed between her and the door, she noticed, which thoroughly amused her. _As if I need doors._

With a thankful smile sent in his direction, she made her way to the bathroom and shut the door.

The moment it closed, she jogged over to the small window at the other side of the room. She pushed it open, then paused as the cool breeze greeted her. Honestly, she hadn't expected him to fall for that one. _I almost feel bad for leaving him like this. Almost, but not quite._

She sighed and reached for her grapple gun. _That wasn't a challenge at all. What a pity._

There was a loud thud as the bathroom door slammed against the wall. Her head snapped around to face the doorway where Leon was now standing, alert and agitated. She recognized the look on his face—she'd seen it numerous times in the midst of battle. A small, anxious knot formed in her stomach as she reassessed the seriousness of the situation. _I should've been faster. Leon will know I was lying now._

Well, at least she would get the challenge she'd been looking for.

 _I need to get out of here._ She switched tactics immediately and focused all of her energy on fleeing. He rushed towards her but she ignored him—acknowledging him meant losing time. Her grapple gun came out quickly and she aimed toward the corner of the nearest building. At the last second Leon reached her and threw her aim off. The line snaked out but hit the bathroom wall instead, hooking itself in and damaging the plaster.

Up close now, Leon reached for her gun. She dodged away, noting the position of the grapple line as she rolled. It had managed to weave itself behind his legs, setting them up for one of her favorite escape tactics. Just as surely as people always failed to look up, they also never checked their feet.

Ada landed on her feet and stood. Leon watched her with sharp eyes, looking ready to chase if she ran. She grinned. "Well Leon, it's been fun, but I've really got to be going."

There was a dull, high-pitched whine as her grapple gun retracted the line. Leon's eyes flickered down at the movement, but he was too slow to react: the cord whipped the back of his knees and sent him tumbling to the ground.

As soon as he was down, she darted out of the doorway in into the bedroom. Sprinting to the far wall, she reached the window and thrust it open. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Leon was up again and had reached the bathroom doorway.

He cried out in protest as she took aim and fired at the corner of a nearby building. She felt the line snap taut as the grapple sunk in, holding true. For a brief moment the line tugged against her as the gun retracted the line. Her heels left the floor; escape was within reach.

Then Leon's body slammed into her.

Her precious grapple gun slipped from her fingers as she was thrown backward. Her back and shoulders briefly scraped the wall before she hit the ground. Leon's full weight came crashing down on her chest and her diaphragm spasmed at the sudden impact, sending her into an uncontrollable coughing fit.

The pressure lessened as Leon quickly pushed onto his elbows. "Are you alright?" he asked, concern dominating his voice despite the fact that he'd tackled her a second ago.

Quickly regaining her control, Ada broke out of his hold and rolled away. _The gun. My grapple gun._ It'd landed somewhere near the window, still attached to the line. When she stopped rolling, she looked up and saw it hanging at the bottom of the window. _So close…_

She hastily crawled forward and reached for it, getting rug burn on her knees in the process, but Leon got there first. _If I'm lucky, he doesn't know how to retract and unhook the grapple._

He unhooked the grapple and retracted the line.

She cursed inwardly and was briefly tempted to try and wrestle the gun from him by sheer force. _Bad idea,_ she quickly decided.

Leon backed up a few steps and stared at her warily, shoulders heaving. "I'm not leaving here without some answers. This can stop when you give me some. _Real_ ones."

First he'd caught her in her own hideout, then he'd tackled her and stolen her grapple gun. And now he was trying to corner her, to _force_ her into being honest with him. Her patience was beginning to wear thin. She let out a short, mocking laugh. "You _really_ think you can stop me, Agent Kennedy?"

His face scrunched up, either from frustration or some other discomfort. She was quickly approaching the point of not caring what caused it. "I just want to have an honest conversation with you. Is that too much to ask?" he pleaded.

"Hmm, let me think…" she teased and briefly pretended to take that question seriously, then sent a high kick towards the gun in his hand.

Though startled, he still managed to dodge away, anticipating her movements with frighteningly fast reflexes. _Almost as fast as Felix…_ She shoved the thought away before it could distract her and moved toward him again, trying to catch him off guard before he regained his balance.

She watched him take note of her, then look up and aim the grapple upward. He shot it and retracted the line just as she was about to reach him. The gun (and Leon) soared up and out of her reach at the last second. His legs dangled in front of her for a second before he let go, leaving her grapple gun attached to the lighting fixture—and out of her reach.

This was the same grapple gun that had gotten her out of Raccoon city and saved her life—as well as Leon's—countless times. It was the _only_ true constant in her life and it was _unique._ Hours had been dedicated to caring for it; she took it apart, applied grease, tested the line… She knew that gun as well as she knew her own body. Maybe better. Being without it made her feel naked. She would've preferred to be naked, actually. If she believed in love—and once again, she didn't—then she loved her grapple gun. And she couldn't get it because she was too _short_.

It felt like some sick child's game of monkey in the middle.

When Leon looked at her again, she made no attempt to disguise her scathing reproach. His eyes briefly bugged out when he saw her expression.

"I'm sorry," he said in a sarcastic scoff, "Does my desire for you to be honest for once in your life bother you?"

 _I'm_ really _running out of patience now._ She managed to wipe the death glare off of her face for long enough to reign in her anger and compose herself. _I need a plan…_ "That's not my only gun, you know," she started and pulled out her pistol.

His expression took on a dark skepticism, mouth turning to a frown and brows drawing together in a thick line. He looked at the gun and back to her. "Really? You're going to shoot me, Ada?"

"I might…" she threatened, keeping her voice smooth and serious, "…if you don't get my gun down from there right now."

He stared into her face for a moment, his mouth stuck in a troubled frown. And then: "No."

 _Snap._

Ada felt her control slipping as irritation leaked through her mask. She raised her gun. "I'm going to count to three."

"Ada," he was shaking his head now, clearly not taking her seriously, "After everything we've been through, I think you owe me some answers. We _both_ know you know more than you're letting on."

She started to count. "One."

Leon had begun to look a little uneasy, but skepticism still ran heavy in his face. There was a little humor there, too, like she was making a bad joke rather than pointing a gun at him. "Is the truth _really_ so terrible that you're willing to kill me for it? Ada, I know you're better than that."

 _He still doesn't think I'm serious._ She continued to count, her voice hard and steady. Her aim never wavered.

"Two."

Leon was finally starting to look a little nervous, but he wasn't giving up. "Just tell me why you're here," he pleaded, "Tell me what happened at Panacea, at Qwills…Ada, you can't leave me in the dark like this."

 _Just won't give up._ She steadied herself for the final count.

"Three."

Her aim suddenly shifted upward, to the light fixture and her grapple gun. She fired, but Leon tackled her— _again_ —at the same moment, causing the shot to miss and hit the ceiling instead. They collapsed in a heap on the carpet, and this time Leon meant business. He straddled her and pinned her arms down with his elbow. After some shifting he had managed to pry the pistol out of her hand and toss it out of her reach.

This day was not going in her favor.

She let out a long sigh, making no attempt to struggle, and rolled her eyes. "Fine. Take my guns." His eyes met hers and locked. They sparkled with a warm triumph that she took as a challenge. Her previous irritation faded as she spotted an opening. _One game ends, another begins._ She felt his thighs and groin pressed against her, and grew mischievous. "You want to frisk me too, Leon?"

His eyes widened slightly, apparently just now realizing the compromising nature of their position. _Good boy, Leon,_ she thought, inwardly grinning as he actually considered the idea. His cheeks had gone slightly pink, and while she doubted he was of aware of it, the palm that held her arms down had flexed slightly, as if testing his control of her. He licked his lips, still thinking, then stepped off her.

 _What'll it be, Leon?_

Leon licked his lips again, his mouth settling into something that was almost a smile, but not quite. His eyes darted up to her face. "If you insist…"

He started with the safe areas—a gentle pat on her forearms that slowly increased pressure as his hands traveled up. He reached her shoulders and stopped, giving her breasts a comically wide berth, and moved on to her waist.

Her jacket shifted under his probing, wrinkling and pressing strange lumps into her skin. He stopped and eyed it with a frown.

"You can take it off, if you like," she added helpfully. When he looked to her, somewhat surprised, she winked. He broke eye contact and looked back to her waist. She watched the muscles in his throat tense as he swallowed. _Someone's nervous…_

She resisted a grin and kept her face innocent as he reached to unbuckle her coat. He pried it open and his eyes swept over her from head to toe. There was a long pause and his eyes glazed over, eventually settling on her chest. A familiar, playful excitement built up in her chest as she sensed her effect on him. She raised her eyebrows, teasing him, and his eyes snapped back up to her face. He blushed a little and looked back down to her body, continuing his work.

She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile during the few seconds he was too embarrassed to look at her face. He found the syringe she used to inject herself with the stimulant and cocked an eyebrow. She could only imagine the ideas running through his head at the discovery. Rather than give him an explanation, she merely smiled and pretended to be oblivious to the question in his eyes.

 _The less he knows, the better._

He moved on without pressing it, apparently deciding it was safe to leave on her person. _Foolish,_ she thought. If he were serious about disarming her, he'd have removed it immediately. A jab through the eye or neck with a needle could be just as lethal as a gunshot to the head, if a bit messier. He knew this, and yet he'd left it on her. And then there was his clear avoidance of her breasts…

His hands ran down her sides with a light, almost shy touch. There was nothing to be found on her torso (aside from several items hidden in her bra, which he'd completely bypassed) so he moved further down, over her hips, her thighs…

He paused and she felt her knife shift at his prodding. He looked at her warily, and then his eyes fell back down as his fingers inched up her skirt. He reached the holster at her thigh that held her knife and removed it, slower and more carefully than necessary. Leon set down the knife and shifted slightly, as if uncomfortable.

She restrained a sadistic giggle. "I think you're enjoying this too much."

Leon rolled his eyes at her, but a slight pink hue rose to his cheeks. _I'm surprised he has any blood left to blush with,_ she thought with a grin. He ran over the rest of her body quickly, forgetting to even check her shoes. _That's three weapons he's left on me, not including the cyanide pill._ Apparently finished, he sat back on his haunches and met her eyes. His face flushed a deeper red.

He cleared his throat. "Now, will you _please_ answer my questions honestly?"

Ada pushed herself into a sitting position and raised her arms above her head in a long, languid stretch. When he seemed sufficiently distracted by the movement, she finally answered. "Alright."

He was about to speak when she interrupted him. "…unless you'd rather do something else?"

By the look that crossed his face and the way he swallowed heavily, the idea was clearly appealing to him. But he appeared to steady after a moment, and continued on his original line of questioning. "Tell me what really happened at Panacea."

 _No fun at all,_ she thought and then reminded herself to be patient. _He will grow distracted again soon enough. It won't hurt to entertain him, just for now…_ "Honestly," she began with a sigh, "I don't know entirely. It appears that something went wrong with Isaac's research, which managed to wipe out the entire compound."

She hesitated briefly, toying with the idea of giving him something more substantial to go on. He _was_ in the dark, after all. A second later, she made her decision and added, "…one way or another."

His eyes took on an intrigued spark, perhaps amazed that she answered him at all. "What do you mean by, 'one way or another'?"

It was a dangerous game, to feed him information like this, walking the line between too much and too little. She needed to be selective, allowing him to only see the world as she wanted him to. But dangerous games were her forte, weren't they?

Ada looked at her nails, keeping her face smooth while she sorted out the best mixture of truth and fiction in her mind. "His work, whether from a direct accident, or from other… _indirect_ sources, caused the fall of the compound."

When she looked back up to examine his reaction, something dark and anxious had crept into his features. "Did…" he had trouble starting his question, his gaze intense as his mouth stumbled along, "Did you have anything to do with it?"

Her mind briefly blanked at the memory of the murdered, mutilated scientists who'd dissolved into puddles in their own panic room. She hadn't directly caused it, but she'd freed the beast who had. And was she not a part of the same Organization who'd given the order in the first place? Was she not just an extension of their power? The bracelet on her wrist felt heavy, and she stopped the line of thought before it could distract her.

Keeping her composure, she replied with the answer he wanted to hear. It was true enough, in a way. "Other than having an intimate knowledge of Isaac Redfern? No."

The relief on his face was obvious. His whole body relaxed slightly, as if some great weight had been lifted from him. _How is it,_ she thought in wonder, _that he still takes what I say at face value? After all that we've been through?_

She pushed the thought from her mind and focused on distracting him. "What do you take me for?" she teased, grinning wide, "A spy?"

Leon rolled his eyes and let out a few cynical chuckles. "Very funny, Ada. So you know nothing else about Panacea's fall?"

"Nothing that would interest you," she lied evasively.

He cocked his head and looked at her carefully. "Then you do know something?"

She grinned internally, having prepared a response that he would not question. "I know that at the time of Panacea's fall, the most encrypted information in their whole system was the porn hidden on Isaac's computer, but I figured you wouldn't want to know that."

Much to her amusement, Leon's face contorted in revulsion. "Did you and he actually have something going on?"

 _He falls for that every time,_ she thought in satisfaction.

Ada laughed quietly and grinned up at him. "Why Leon, I do believe I am detecting a hint of jealousy again…"

Of course he couldn't let it go. He stared over at her, a hint of his earlier disgust on his face but otherwise serious. "Did you?"

Ada kept quiet for a while, drumming her fingers against her thigh, looking away and quietly humming to herself. Leon squirmed at her silence, hanging on her answer. The familiar, addictive pleasure rippled through her as she watched his discomfort. Oh, how it _bothered_ him.

Finally she met his eyes, a small smile on her lips. "…yes."

His face immediately took an unhappy pout. She restrained a laugh. "Was it real?" he pressed her, "Did he know you by your real name?"

She laughed out loud, unrestrained and real. "Leon, do _you_ know me by my real name?" He didn't, but she wasn't sure she remembered what it really was anymore, so that didn't matter much.

His frown was adorable. _How sweet. He thought he knew my real name._ He continued on, clearly unhappy with the realization. "Do you know what happened to him?"

 _Probably dead somewhere in the charred remains of Qwills._

For once, she wouldn't have to lie. Much. "The grand consensus is that he's dead," she answered honestly, "Being missing or unreachable for weeks on end tends not to be good for your health." As an afterthought she added, "Unless you're me, of course."

Leon pressed on. "Were people actually following him?"

"It's hard to say," she replied, evasive again. And again, he fell straight into her trap.

"Were _you_ following him?"

"Don't be absurd," she argued, pretending to be appalled, "Everything between Isaac and I was consensual."

The comment clearly bothered him but he was more prepared the second time around. "From what I've read it seemed like there was some outside source, some… _benefactor_ that was pushing him to do something he didn't want to do. What were they doing there? And who else was involved?"

 _So many questions, so few answers to give._ He was trying so hard. It'd all be so much easier, so much safer for him if he'd just give up. _I'll give him a dead end; a distraction. Something to occupy his time._ She looked him in the eye. "If you really want to go down that road," she began seriously, "then I may know someone who can help you."

This seemed to confuse him. "You can't?"

"Not like she can," she lied smoothly, "But be warned: this tree you're barking up is more likely to get you killed than give you answers." _I hope he listened to that last part._

He nodded, and she was fairly certain he was going to brazenly ignore her warning. Again. "Tell me how to find them."

Ada remembered the blond woman who she'd contacted all those months ago. "There's a woman by the name of Trinette Wheeler. She knew Isaac….intimately."

"More than you?" He asked, curious now.

She smirked. "Significantly. Let's just say that she and Isaac had a relationship that only money can buy."

His eyebrows shot up. "I see."

"Oh, you will," she assured him. Getting Trinette to talk would be a feat in itself. She'd almost certainly ask him for money, and even then she'd still probably be difficult. Despite her appearance, the woman wasn't as ignorant as she came off as. Manipulating men, keeping secrets, telling lies—it was required for both Trinette's trade as well as her own.

Ada stood, feeling the need to hurry as time ticked by. "If we're going to continue this line of questioning, could we do it from the bathroom? I really did want to freshen up."

It really _had_ been a long day, and she _was_ tired. Most importantly, though, the change in scenery would also almost certainly provide new opportunities for her to escape.

She didn't wait for him to answer and started walking toward the bathroom. Behind her, she heard him follow. "I'm not leaving you alone in there."

"Then don't," she said simply.

The water was cold on her face. It was nice, and helped take her mind off of the ache in her head. Leon watched her the entire time. She could feel his gaze on her, even with her own eyes closed. "Have you found those answers yet, Leon?" she murmured. Ada opened her eyes and caught his through the mirror.

He didn't move, only stared at her as some primal understanding passed between them. Predator and prey, locked in a never ending fight for survival. _Can you feel it, Leon? Can you feel them hunting you? Can you feel_ **me** _hunting you?_

"Leon?"

Leon stared at her a moment longer, then swallowed. He grew pale and a hint of cold fear leaked into his eyes. "Felix knows about you," he said suddenly, "He knows you were at Panacea."

This was hardly news to her. _Why bring him up now? Does he scare him?_ She wouldn't blame him. Fear seemed to be a universal reaction to Felix. There was just something unsettling about the man. She dried her face on a handkerchief and straightened. "I'd be surprised if he didn't. Very few things escape that man's notice."

"You're not worried?" he pressed, brows drawing together. He looked away from her and added, quietly, "I think…he wants to control me."

Ada laughed, dry and humorless. "I'm sure if he thought he could, he would."

Yes, control was indeed the problem. It was the real reason why she was assigned to Leon in the first place—because they believed that she could do it. They hadn't actually said it, but she knew it was true. They wanted him obedient, useful. But Leon had proven to be incorruptible time and time again. Such a rare trait, his purity. His honor. His selflessness. He would never willingly, _knowingly_ do the things they wanted from him. And that was where she came in: _she_ could control him. He'd listen to her, if she did it right. Because he trusted her. Even _cared_ about her.

 _They're using me to get to him._

Leon didn't seem comforted by her words. Concern overtook his features. "I think he might use you to get to me."

Ada tensed, almost feeling like he had read her thoughts. She watched him through the mirror, alarm coursing through her.

Leon continued, oblivious. "He threatened me, but I don't understand what he wants." He stared at her, the concern mixing with an underlying affection.

She relaxed, though something inside her still felt off. _He's worried about_ me, _not himself._ She turned around. "So Felix used me to threaten you?" _Is Leon more concerned with my safety than his own?_ The idea was amusing, if disturbing, and she let out a small chuckle. "How cute."

That pout had come back again. "Ada, this is serious," he scolded and stepped closer to her, "He's dangerous. You should be careful."

 **I** _should be careful?_ She just laughed at him. _If only you knew…_

"Ada," Leon snapped, growing irritated with her. He broke eye contact with her and let out a frustrated sigh. He ran a hand through his hair, as he always did when he was stressed. "I don't even understand how he became my partner in the first place. He obviously isn't a clean agent," he complained.

 _You really haven't realized it yet?_ Ada stopped laughing at him. "In cases like his," she started, offering up a small bit of truth, "Having a clean conscience and getting the job done generally aren't the same thing."

He snorted, apparently amused, and _once again_ ignoring her warning. "Sounds like you and he are two peas in a pod. How is it that you know him again?"

She muted her reaction to the memory, and told him a vague version of the truth. It didn't matter, anyway. "A long time ago, there was something he wanted very badly. He enlisted my help in getting it."

"He recruited you for a mission? For the agency?"

 _How can he not see it?_ She wondered, growing mildly concerned. _Maybe his odds aren't as good as I thought._ She spoke slowly, carefully. He needed to understand, but she couldn't tell him outright. "He was working for someone different then. And it was a personal mission."

He raised an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth turning up in amusement. "Felix has a personal life?"

It would have been surprising to her, too, if she hadn't seen it herself. She smiled faintly. "Everyone wants something. Even him."

The answer seemed to throw him a little and he paused, watching her intently. He still hadn't gotten it fully, and she was suspicious he wasn't ever going to. He had too much faith in people. _And what does Leon want?_ She thought idly, _Peace, I'm sure. The safety of his loved ones._ He continued to watch her, drawn to her as if by some force of nature. She added another item to the list: _Me._

Something inside her felt off again, and she remembered that she should be hurrying to get out of here. "I'm surprised you haven't asked about the tub," she said, changing the subject.

He gave her a confused stare at first that bordered with anger and embarrassment, and she knew he must be thinking of their night not so long ago when she'd shared his bath. She smirked a little, then nodded toward the tub behind him—where she'd stored the bodies of Orion's hit men.

Leon cautiously walked over and peeled back the curtain, only to jerk back at the sight. " _Why_ are there _bodies_ in the tub?" He demanded, whipping his head back around to stare at her.

Ada took a couple steps back and leaned against the doorframe. _A little closer to the exit._ She shrugged as Leon continued to gape at her. "You had some friends. I took care of them for you. Next time, you should try thanking me instead of interrogating me."

Well, it was _sort of_ true.

Leon looked to the men in the tub, then back to her in disbelief. "So what, you're protecting me now?"

"I was just passing through and I stumbled upon them," she offered, "Good thing, too. I'm guessing you had no idea they were following you?"

Leon looked back to the tub, distracted. "Are they dead?"

Ada took a step backwards into the other room, watching him carefully. "Yes, but they left me little choice. Would you rather I let them kill you?"

Leon was leaning over the tub now, trying to get a closer look at the bodies. Ada took her chance and quietly ran into the other room.

"You could have told me," Leon complained from the bathroom, still not noticing her absence.

Ada gathered up her weapons with lightning speed, sliding her knife and gun back into their respective holsters. "And ruin all the fun of surprising you like this?" she responded. All that was left was her grapple gun, and she had to be fast about it or Leon would figure out what was happening. _This could be tricky…_

"Were you just going to leave them here?" Leon called from the other room, "If they were really trying to kill me, I should call this in."

She had a plan to get the gun, but she had to do it quietly. Taking a running head start, Ada leapt at the wall and pushed off, using it as a spring board. The momentum was enough to send her just to the height she needed to grab the gun, push the release, and land quietly on her toes. Leon didn't come rushing in, so she assumed she'd been successful in her endeavor to be quiet. "I wouldn't worry about that," she assured him, pushing the window open and prepping herself to leave. At the window's edge she paused, catching sight of the empty duffel bag she'd originally used to carry her supplies.

A wickedly devious thought crossed her mind.

She spared a brief look towards the bathroom doorway. _It's a gamble, but…_

Her lips spread into a mischievous grin. She continued to talk as she frantically worked. "Someone will be here to deal with them in a few hours."

The first part of her task done, she searched for paper. The only thing around was the faded tag on the dilapidated mattress. She tore it off and started writing. "You should make sure you're gone by then."

She left less than five seconds later, leaping out the window and grappling to the next building. The bare skin of her hips and thighs rubbed against her skirt as she landed. She grinned, heart pounding a little faster, as she realized she'd just flashed the entire street below.

And left Leon with another "souvenir"—her underwear.

She let out a deep, satisfied sigh.

"I outdo myself sometimes."


End file.
